The evolution of a night.

Social Studies has been a staple of the Boston dance music scene for 11 years, holding a special place at the heart of the underground for the heads and providing a gateway to the music we love for upcoming generations of dancers in a city where cultural preservation is vital.

Founded in 2011, the party started as an experiment—a disco party at the Good Life bar for which the only aspiration was to create an intimate environment rooted in the DIY party culture that had seen a resurgence in Brooklyn. Boston was missing a slice of this scene and soundtrack. Friends from New York like Jacques Renault and Marcos Cabral, Alex from Queens, Eli Escobar, and Justin Strauss played disco to techno to a dedicated crowd that returned monthly.

As our musical tastes broadened, our identity solidified, and, magically, the party’s crowd united denizens of Boston’s previously compartmentalized sub-genre cliques, Social Studies grew to become a spot to to experience icons in the making as well as respected veterans of dance music—in a basement that could hold a capacity of just 100 people on its best day. Guests like Kenny Dope, DJ Technics, Moodymann, Horse Meat Disco, Carlos Souffront, Tony Humphries, Octo Octa, DJ Bone, and Paranoid London have all graced the Downtown Boston booth. 

But as the name suggests, Social Studies was and is more than a dance party. We’re a little academic—we’ve always aimed to educate about underground culture and community as well as the true roots (in New York, Chicago, and Detroit) and creators (Black, Brown, and LGBTQ) of the music we love—disco, house, and techno. (Who remembers the zines at the function?) We’re proud to have seen partygoers move from the dancefloor to the DJ booth, Social Studies graduates such as Dee Diggs, Oscar Huang, Lychee, and Lis Dalton. In 2016 and 2017, our good friend, the most talented Ali Berger, threw a series of corresponding Social Studies parties in Detroit, keeping the spirit alive with guests like Ray Bone Jones and John FM.

At its core, Social Studies is about just loving (and nerding out about) music. A night guarantees musical awakenings, close-your-eyes-and-move moments, and a euphoric crowd reaction to a 1am heater. Dance music and the scene has seen more transformations than we can remember, but today our mission remains the same, and we’re thrilled to continue the journey with new and old faces with what we call our Back to Basics series.

Back to basics.

In 2019, a lot of reflection on the state of dance music in Boston helped us focus Social Studies squarely on its original mission and reconstruct what we love in a night: quality dance music, quality connections, quality time. And that’s it. Each party celebrates the music that moves us through the selections of the underground’s current torchbearers. These are DJs of the highest caliber, yes, but even more important, these are DJs with soul—they just get it. They are emerging as leaders in their dance enclaves and as their own dancefloor educators. Their sounds often transcend genre to create soundscapes that meld old and new. For this series, we have hosted Savile, Musclecars, Amadeezy, Toribio, JADALAREIGN, Marco Weibel + Sean Sato, Turtle Bugg, Ali Berger + livwutang, Cosmo, and DJ Shannon + Nick Boyd, and each party has proved the future is bright.

We book based on trajectory, not travel.

We’re proud to have brought the “ones to watch” to Good Life, DJs that we feel represent the real special stuff percolating through the underground. And indeed we’ve watched them go on to shine, as successful headliners, noted producers, and international touring DJs. This foresight has translated to bringing Octo Octa in 2013 and, just recently in April, 2022, JADALAREIGN, who’s headed to stardom and humbly opening up the gate of New York’s underground scene along the way. We’ll continue to amplify those who honor dance music’s history and architects in whatever they curate, play, or produce. Never have we booked a DJ because they were on tour, because they were slated to play in New York or Montreal the night after, or because we worked with an agency.