Festival celebrates Juneteenth with House Music in Columbia | Concert and Music News – The Post and Courier

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Updated: June 11, 2024 @ 4:15 pm
House Teenth will be a celebration of Juneteenth and house music in Columbia’s Lorick Park on June 15 at noon. 
Columbia House Music Project

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House Teenth will be a celebration of Juneteenth and house music in Columbia’s Lorick Park on June 15 at noon. 
COLUMBIA — Kelly Kel talks about house music with so much passion that it’s hard not to get swept up in her excitement. Kel, a Columbia DJ, is an ardent fan of the dance-music genre that was born in Chicago in the early 1980’s thanks to innovators like Frankie Knuckles, Ron Hardy, Phuture, Steve “Silk” Hurly and many more.
Characterized by heavy bass drum hits, offbeat hi-hats, synth riffs and layered percussion, it’s an infectious style of dance music that has influenced artists in multiple other genres, most notably pop, techno and hip hop.
The house music genre even has its own accessories. This beat-and-percussion based music practically begs for audience participation, and you can often hear and see tambourines, cowbells, maracas and even whistles in the crowd.
“When the disco era ended, a new genre was created,” Kel said.  “How incredible is that? And it’s known to have been created in the underground clubs from the population that wasn’t really accepted in society, like gays and Latinos and Blacks. So these songs were created that made everything go to a higher level of music, which we know today as house music.”
Kel is the founder of The Columbia House Music Project, which is dedicated to raising awareness about the roots of the genre and showing people a good time. The goal of awareness — and dancing — is why the project put together House Teenth, a free festival on June 15 at Lorick Park off North Main Street.
The festival runs from noon to 6 p.m. and house music DJs from all over the East Coast will take the stage and spin their faves. Acclaimed Columbia vocalist Brittany Turnipseed will belt out some house music of her own. 
“We have DJs coming in from Chicago, from New Jersey and, of course, our South Carolina DJ’s,” Kel said. “We get to see all these DJs playing their particular style of music, which we are educating our population about because each place has their own style of house music. But guess what? It all comes together as one.”
Columbia House Music Project
So you definitely need to come ready to dance. But House Teenth isn’t just about the music.
“You’re going to see vendors that are bringing pieces of African history,” Kel said. “You’re going to see our children dancing and playing games. You’re going to see food trucks out there. It’s something that’s really incredible to see.”
And it’s no coincidence that the name of the festival is House Teenth, or that the date is in June. Kel said the event is meant to be directly connected with Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States.
A combination of the words “June” and “nineteenth,” “Juneteenth” is the name given June 19, 1865, when Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform more than 250,000 still-enslaved Africans there that they were free.
“House music is a part of Juneteenth,” Kel explained “A lot of music came from Mother Africa over to here, starting with African beats. It was during the Transatlantic Slave Trade before the Emancipation Proclamation. So this music was already here in different forms and different regions.”
But ideally, Kel also wants House Teenth, one of several different house-music-based events she’s organized, to be a place where everyone can feel safe to express themselves.
“It’s incredible to watch,” Kel said. “Sometimes you can get a spiritual experience out of a particular song. Everybody should be singing or dancing together, because a lot of this music brings back African dance styles. It’s a judgement-free zone, and there’s a lot of love out there, too. Because house music is considered to be a spirit, mind, body and soul thing.”
And maybe when people leave the festival, they’ll have taken a step on the path towards becoming as passionate about house music as Kel and her collaborators.
“We call it ‘seed through the soil,’” she said. “We want to plant this music for our younger generation so they can love it and want to keep it going, pass it on and make it even greater than what we’re doing. There is so much love within this music.”
House Music is one of the most dance-worthy genres out there, and its roots — like a lot of American music — are taken from tunes carried over the Atlantic Ocean by enslaved Africans. A festival on North Main Street wants to honor that legacy.  Read more‘A spirit, mind, body and soul thing’: NOMA Festival celebrates Juneteenth with house music
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