Disco Roots

David Mancuso

DJ / Host

David Mancuso was an American DJ and the founder of The Loft — the invite-only rent party at 647 Broadway, New York, that he began hosting in 1970. Mancuso was not a mixer; he played records from beginning to end, using the full arc of each track as the building block of an evening's emotional journey. He was obsessed with sound quality and built an audiophile system using Klipschorn speakers and custom tweeter arrays. The Loft had no liquor license — admission was by invitation, and a donation covered costs. The crowd was predominantly Black, Latino, and gay. Mancuso's vision of the DJ as emotional curator, not technical showman, directly shaped Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles. He died in 2016.

Francis Grasso

DJ

Francis Grasso was the resident DJ at the Sanctuary (a converted church at 407 West 43rd Street) and the Continental Baths in the early 1970s. He is credited with inventing slip-cueing — holding a record stationary on a felt slipmat while the platter spins beneath it, then releasing at the exact moment needed — which made precise beatmatching possible for the first time. He also pioneered headphone monitoring, allowing DJs to cue the next record privately while the current one played. His sets blended rock, Motown, James Brown, and African percussion in a continuous flow that was genuinely new. Grasso burned out and left DJing by the mid-70s; he died in 2001, largely unrecognised outside specialist circles.