PODCAST: Talkin’ beats with the ‘Godmother of House,’ Stacey Hotwaxx Hale

Photo by Bri Kirkpatrick via Facebook

Stacey “Hotwaxx” Hale has been making house music out of Detroit since the 1980s, when the city was better known as a cauldron of groundbreaking techno music. Along the way, she DJ’d at radio stations like WJLB and WGPR, and she’s traveled the globe playing major festivals and clubs.

She’s always been busy in her creative endeavors, and that hasn’t changed in her fourth decade on the scene. Now she’s part of Red Bull Radio‘s new “Live From Detroit” show, she teaches after-school DJing classes at Girls Rock Detroit, and she performs with a live band called Nyumba Muziki. And the day after we recorded this episode, she was planning to fly to Atlanta to attend a film festival that is screening a pair of documentaries that feature her.

“House came out of the church, it came out of a gospel church, where we have music called gospel house churches,” Hale said. “It makes you feel good. Many times the message in house music, it makes you smile, it makes you happy, it gives you a different feeling. A lot of times there’s keyboards, sometimes there’s vocals. The message is always positive.” 

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