15 Years Deep: LoveHouse Brings the NJ Underground to Charlotte

Published October 2026

Charlotte, North Carolina.
October 2025.
One year into the Queen City chapter.

New energy, same roots.

Sound up. Records warm. Basement energy carried south.

I’m Chenelle Mayers-Crockett, and that is the beginning of LoveHouse in the Queen City.

Not a rebrand. Not a trend report. Not another polished nightlife concept built around a guest list.

A continuation.

After fifteen years in New Jersey’s underground house music scene, I moved the sound south and launched LoveHouse in Charlotte in October 2025. This city became the next chapter for everything that shaped me: basement rooms, late-night sessions, deep records, long sets, and dance floors where nobody needed to explain why they came.

You heard the music. You felt the room. You stayed until the last record.

That energy came with me. That energy became LoveHouse.

Start With The Sound

Before there was a Charlotte event calendar, there was the music.

The warm chords. The rolling bassline. The kick that lands right in the center of your chest. The vocal that finds you when you need it. The groove that keeps moving long after the week has taken everything out of you.

I grew up inside that feeling as a builder in the New Jersey underground.

For fifteen years, the NJ scene was home. Basement rooms. Back-room linkups. Late nights that turned into early mornings. It was where records got passed hand to hand, where instincts got sharpened, and where a party came together because a few of us knew the night needed to exist.

LoveHouse’s first party landed on Saturday, July 24th, 2010 at Club Elevation, 1425 Springfield Ave, Irvington NJ, right near the Maplewood borderline. Jihad Muhammad kicked off that first night with a deep soulful house set that set the tone properly.

And across every flyer, the same line.

Powered by Energy & Soul.

Energy & Soul is the promotional engine behind LoveHouse, Twirlspace Recordings, and all affiliated events. The push behind the room. The signal behind the sound. The name stamped on the movement from the beginning.

That is how underground culture survives. Somebody brings the records. Somebody finds the space. Somebody tells a friend. Then the room fills.

Take Fifteen Years With You

Moving from New Jersey to Charlotte did not mean leaving the past behind.

It meant carrying it forward.

Those years in the NJ underground taught me what matters when the sound is up and the crowd is close. Listen to the room. Respect the journey of a set. Let a record breathe. Understand that the best house music parties are never built around one moment, one name, or one photo.

They are built through accumulation.

One groove into the next.
One familiar face beside a new one.
One Saturday night becoming a memory.

The resident line ran deep:

Beloved from 2010 to 2011.
Mannup and Kerry DJ Disc through 2012 and 2013, during the Third Fridays era.
DJ Donna Edwards from 2013 to 2020.
And now John Crockett, resident from 2024 to the present.

And the room stayed alive because it was more than a booking.

Club Elevation. 1425 Springfield Ave, Irvington NJ. Near the Maplewood borderline.
LoveHouse Third Fridays. $10 all night. Doors 9pm–2am. Side entrance.

The room had a face too.

Month after month, the flyers told the story. Birthdays. Homecomings. Pisces play House. Gemini jams. Virgo affairs. Virgo parties. Chenelle as LoveHouse’s Mistress of Ceremony, holding the thread while the residents shifted and the family kept growing.

Hosted by Antoine Sohl. Hosted by DVS IMAAD. Same room. Same signal.

Special guests stepped in from far outside Jersey too. She Jay Zandy from South Africa by way of NYC. Masahiko Uchikawa of Loft Soul Records Japan. Tee Mallory of Ascension Music. Naeem Johnson touching down with Mannup in March 2012, then again with Donna Edwards in 2014. Nights where resident Donna Edwards held the center and the bill reached wide without losing the room.

And some circles came all the way back around. Jihad Muhammad kicked off the first party in July 2010, then returned years later as a special guest for Bang the Drum with Donna Edwards.

And it was never just DJ sets. The 2 Year Anniversary in July 2012 brought in a live performance from Rick Galactik, tied to Kevin Hedge of Blaze and Blaze Imprints. The residency could stretch. The room could hold more.

It traveled too. Not only Club Elevation. The Femme Fatale / Spring Awakening night at The Coffee Cave opened space for women selectors with DJ Datgurl Curly and DJ Venus7, Diva of the Deep.

The flyers are the receipts.

Same heart. Same room. An evolving cast. All Powered by Energy & Soul.

John Crockett was in the arc before the residency title came his way. Guest DJ. Producer. Twirlspace Recordings in the mix. Then the resident line rolls forward in 2024.

The underground is not just a location. It is a way of moving.

It is choosing substance over spectacle. Connection over status. Music over posturing.

So when I brought LoveHouse to Charlotte, the mission was clear: bring the authentic, raw, human energy of the NJ underground to a city with a growing house music community of its own.

Not to dominate the scene.

To add to it.

Build The Room Again

Charlotte has energy. It has movement. It has DJs, dancers, selectors, producers, creatives, and people looking for a gathering that feels different from the usual circuit.

But every growing scene needs people willing to build.

That is where I come in. That is where LoveHouse comes in.

When I made the decision to move from New Jersey to Charlotte, I was not chasing a trend. I was following the pull of the music and the need for a room that felt honest. A room with no egos. No velvet ropes. No performance of status. Just people, sound, and space to move.

New energy, same roots.

We are here for the people searching for house music Charlotte NC can feel in its bones. We are here for listeners who want more than a quick drop and a crowded room. We are here for the ones who know that the right bassline can change the temperature of an entire afternoon.

Our parties are designed around participation.

You do not need to arrive with a certain look. You do not need to know every DJ. You do not need to prove that you have been in the scene forever.

Come as you are.

Bring your friends. Bring your curiosity. Bring the part of yourself that only comes out when the music starts.

The floor has room for you.

The archive shows where it came from. These are the rooms now.

Fifteen years of roots, and the QC is live.

Real faces. Real decks. Same pulse moving south.

Remember Where House Came From

House music has always been bigger than a genre label.

Its roots reach back to Chicago’s Black and queer underground club culture, where DJs, dancers, and communities created spaces for freedom, release, and connection. At places like The Warehouse, the music grew through long nights and open ears. Disco, soul, funk, gospel, drum machines, and electronic textures came together in a sound that could hold a whole room. NYC and NJ had its own rhythm with Paradise Garage, the Loft and Zanzibar.

As NPR’s history of house music explains, the early scene was built in small clubs, basements, and underground spaces before the sound traveled across the world.

That lineage matters.

It reminds me that house was never meant to be empty noise behind a VIP section. It was made for people. For movement. For the shared release of being in a room where the rhythm takes over.

That is the line I carry with LoveHouse.

Chicago to New Jersey to Charlotte.
Roots, rhythm, release.

The sound may travel from Chicago through NJ to the QC, but the purpose stays close: gather people, protect the feeling, and let the music do what it has always done.

Bring people together.

Keep The Ego Outside

There are no velvet ropes at the center of this story.

No ego contest. No pressure to perform a version of yourself. No expectation that you arrive already connected.

That part matters to me. It always has.

After fifteen years in the New Jersey underground, I know the rooms that stay with you are the ones that leave space for people to be people. High standards for the music. Open door for the crowd. Real connection over posturing.

That balance matters.

The DJs come prepared. The records are intentional. The transitions have weight. The room is treated with care.

But the atmosphere stays human.

You can dance in the front. You can stand near the back. You can come alone and leave knowing somebody’s name. You can spend the afternoon moving, listening, talking, laughing, or simply letting the sound reach you.

There is no wrong way to belong.

Find Your Way Into Charlotte House Music

Since launching LoveHouse in October 2025, I have been helping shape a home for underground house music Charlotte can call its own.

The sound moves through deep house, soulful house, Afro tech, classic house textures, and whatever else belongs in the moment. The goal is not to force every gathering into one narrow box.

The goal is to create a journey.

Some afternoons start smooth and warm. Some arrive with more pulse. Some build slowly until the room is moving as one. The DJ reads the floor. The floor gives something back.

That exchange is everything.

If you are looking for Charlotte house music events, start with the LoveHouse events page. If you want to hear more of the sound between gatherings, explore the LoveHouse music archive. And if you are building a gathering of your own, you can connect with us about bookings.

The next room is always waiting.

Come Through

The move from New Jersey to Charlotte was not about starting over.

It was about opening the door wider.

I brought fifteen years of underground work with me: the lessons, the relationships, the records, the patience, the late-night conversations, the belief that a real party can still change your week.

LoveHouse launched in Charlotte in October 2025 because the QC was ready for another kind of gathering.

A place for deep cuts.
Warm chords.
Heavy bass.
Open energy.

A place where the music leads and everybody gets to move.

So if you have been searching for underground house parties CLT can believe in, come find us. If you want house music parties Charlotte can feel from the first beat to the last, pull up. If you already know the feeling, bring somebody who needs to hear it.

No gatekeeping. No posing. No pretending.

Just house music, shared properly.

The NJ and New York underground, from legendary and foundational institutions like Zanzibar to Shelter NYC, gave me my roots.

Charlotte is where I am growing LoveHouse now, with John Crockett carrying the resident line forward.

The party keeps moving.

LoveHouse is here to stay.