House and Soul Vocalists Living Today

Dive into the rhythmic heart of contemporary house and soul with House and Soul Vocalists Living Today, the podcast that celebrates the voices shaping tomorrow's soundtracks. Hosted by music curator and DJ Elena Voss, each episode spotlights trailblazing vocalists who infuse raw emotion into pulsating beats and silky grooves—from underground club queens like Zara McFarlane and Jordan Rakei to rising stars blending neo-soul with deep house vibes.Expect intimate interviews, live acoustic sessions, and exclusive tracks that reveal the stories behind the hooks that keep us moving. Whether you're a die-hard selector or just discovering the soulful side of the dancefloor, join us as we groove through the legends living and thriving in 2025. Tune in, turn it up, and let the vocals take over—new episodes drop every other Friday on all major platforms. What's your go-to house soul anthem? Share in the comments!


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Arbora. Tucker is one of dance music's definitive living vocalists.
Her gospel trained voice helped soundtrack house's crossover into the
mainstream in the nineties. Anyone will recognize her rapturalist delivery
on singles like c See Music Factories, Gonna Make You Sweat,
Everybody Dance Now, and Louis Vega produced tracks such as

(00:23):
I Get Lifted and Beautiful People. The latter anthem spawned
hard Drives, Ubiquitous Smash Deep Inside, which sampled a fraction
of Tucker's elastic ad libs. Despite being associated with the
golden era of house, Tucker considers herself a passionate disciple
of disco. She's worked extensively with legendary producer Serni, providing

(00:48):
vocals for live performances as well as the two thousand
seven new disco track Lie to Me. For her, disco
provided a lifeline and her most foundational musical experiences. First
of all, I love disco, Tucker asserted over the phone
from a holiday in Ibiza. If you hear this music,

(01:10):
You're not going to be a wallflower. You're getting up
to dance. It's this galvanizing energy that catapulted disco from
underground darling to global sensation, Emerging from black and Latin
subcultures in nineteen seventies New York. The sound was born
from late sixties R and B and funk, the spirituality

(01:31):
of soul, and the layered instrumentation of salsa. The genre
thrived in the clandestine scene associated with queer communities and
helped to birth contemporary club culture. Disco texts became sites
of expression, opulent clothing, and sexual liberation. Tucker may have
been too young to enjoy the culture at a zenith,

(01:53):
but disco was nevertheless the sonic fabric of her coming
of age in Brooklyn, the velvet rote hopes of clubs
like Studio fifty four, Paradise Garage and Leviticus she couldn't
yet enter doing the hustle in Fort Green Park or
hearing the Ojays blasting at the local record shop. The
joy Tucker associates with disco contrasts heavily with the backlash

(02:16):
the movement faced by the late seventies. At the height
of its popularity, Disgruntled rock fans began the Disco Sucks campaign,
culminating in the infamous Disco Demolition night at Chicago Baseball
Stadium Camiski Park in nineteen seventy nine. Led by local
DJ Steve Dahl. The rally resulted in the detonation of

(02:39):
a dumpster filled with disco vinyl. More than five thousand
fans stormed the field, requiring riot police to disperse the crowds.
What followed was disco's sharp decline, precipitated by the racist,
homophobic agenda of the anti disco campaigners. For a time,
the genre disappeared from the public eye and returned to

(03:00):
the recesses of counterculture. However, through the years, it's proven
its resilience through various resurgences, most notably, its crossover appeal
within pop has provided newer generations with a valuable entry point.
Artists like Sophie Ellis Bexter lit up the charts with
the new disco of the early two thousands, while pandemic

(03:21):
era albums such as Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia and Jesse
Ware's What's Your Pleasure evoked the escapism and pleasure of
disco at its peak. For our latest a History in
ten Tracks, Tucker sketched out her very personal history of disco.
Her selections, which range from contagiously funky beats to the

(03:42):
charismatic vocals of Teddy Pendergrass demonstrate that disco is eternal.
It's not just a genre, it's a full body expression
of togetherness.