ABSTRACT
A few DJs in Chicago use the implements of hip-hop to produce interactive modernist disruptions and visionary renewals of mind, motion, and memory. If the theories and techniques of literary modernism are an influence on African-American writers' depiction of psychological space, then music provides a powerful guide in imagining communal space. Duke Ellington describes a modernist vertical space of remembrance, a vortex, a novel space of relativity and juxtaposition that includes "every contrast". G-Most's theory and the spaces it produces exist in motion, revolving motion in and around 33.3 rpm. Shafts of consciousness extend down from the horizontal place, the social space, of the dance floor. With records found mostly in used record bins—the collective unconscious of the city's soundscape—DJs invite dancers, and even just listeners, down to the crossroads. To bridge the gap and connect with the audience, a DJ must be able to hear and respond.
