2006 was a year of devastating loss for Detroit Hip-Hop. The sudden but anticipated death of James “J. Dilla” Yancey on February 10, propelled the city’s small Hip-Hop community into a torrent of grief. However, two months later, when DeShaun “Proof” Holton was gunned down at an after-hours club in early morning hours of April 11, grief was too small a word to express the shock that resonated throughout a community. The remnants of that shock remains today, echoing inside empty venues, reflected in the eyes of hometown artists, and depriving a community of its very best friend.
That was the impact that these men had on the small Detroit Hip-Hop community. These few hundred men and women who grew up together, learning and loving this industry together, most with a shared history that extends 20 or so years, of battling a larger city that wouldn’t accept or acknowledge its contributions to music. It is from this small community of people that Eminem, Royce Da 5’9”, Black Milk, and many more artists honed their skills and influenced them to become the artists that they are today.
Within the Detroit Hip-Hop community, House Shoes played an integral part for over 20 years. A DJ at the legendary St. Andrews Hall, as well as numerous other Detroit music venues, “Shoes,” as he is affectionately known, broke records by Detroit artists, and connected countless people and dots with amazing results.
It was Shoes who introduced Guilty Simpson to J. Dilla. It was Shoes who first broke Danny Brown’s music at Northern Lights Lounge. For years, Shoes worked in Detroit for little to no pay, helping others, producing music for free, spinning for next to nothing until 2006, when he experienced his own transition and moved to Los Angeles, and started a family, with a daughter on the way and a three-year old son appropriately named, James DeShaun.
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