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  • House

Lady D

Darlene “Lady D” Jackson grew up in Washington Heights in a family that loved all types of music; the blues, jazz, country and western, funk, soul, and disco all filtered through her developing musical consciousness. With brothers who were DJs, young Darlene would go down to the family’s basement rec room and play with their records when they weren’t home, but it wasn’t until much later, while living with DJ Mel Hammond, that she had the time and access to learn the finer points of the art under the tutelage of her “brother,” DJ Jevon Jackson. During the mid-1980s, Lady D attended Whitney Young by day, and parochial school dance parties by night, taking in live DJ sets by radio icons like the Hot Mix 5 DJs, as well as juice bar performers like Rick Lenoir and E–Smoove. She also attended Gucci parties at Sauer’s with Steve “Silk” Hurley and snuck out to see Ron Hardy when she could. She came of age as an artist in the jacking Chicago house loft scene of the early 1990s, frequenting venues like Red Dog and Shelter and has held residencies Zentra, Boom Boom Room, and Smart Bar. Lady D was also a member of the Super Jane collective with DJs Dayhota, Collette, and Heather and has been an ambassador for house music around the world as both a touring artist and an a&r executive for AfterHours Records, not to mention her own D’lectable imprint.

1980s

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Sneaking into Smart Bar with a fake ID

DJ Lady D used to sneak into Smart Bar when she was nineteen to hear the club's mix of house and industrial.

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