Carrie D. loves obligations. As an academic, a nightclub manager and the founder of the event series Club Hospitality, Carrie loves nothing more than being in service to her people. That’s why she felt called to create Sugarwater, a new three-day festival arriving just in time for Juneteenth weekend.
Sugarwater focuses on celebrating Black culture at the intersection of house, techno, juke and footwork, styles of electronic music rooted deeply in Chicago and the Midwest.
“I’m at this critical broker point,” Carrie said. “I have access to all these resources now, these places, these spaces, these people, these sound systems, the controllers, whatever it may be. It feels like it would be a disservice not to mobilize them in grand ways, especially for Black and brown people.”
But Carrie’s journey to this moment was years in the making. Originally from Jackson, Mississippi, the cultural architect moved to Chicago to attend graduate school and receive a degree in computational sociology. Early in her schooling, she got a side job as a bouncer, which eventually grew into managing two venues. Along the way, she also founded Club Hospitality, her own party series, currently touring eight cities around the country.
“I’ve only yet (begun) to acknowledge the fact that I’m doing something creative, following a creative endeavor. I grew up very poor, very hood, very much in the struggle, so the position I found myself in is literally insane, to be honest with you. But now we’re here,” said Carrie.
After Carrie began managing Podlasie Club this winter, she noticed the first real dates available for booking on the calendar fell in June.
“I was like, OK, well, this is a sign from God himself,” Carrie recalled. “It’s time to make a spectacle.”
Creating a series of events around Juneteenth was a no-brainer, yet the choice to focus on the liberatory holiday was more than a symbolic date for Carrie.
“We need more time to sit in these feelings, the celebration, the memorial, all of it, the good and the bad. We deserve it,” Carrie said.
That is why Sugarwater will move beyond the standard single-night event structure and instead function as a multi-day festival.
“I wanted the impression of something that really seemed to have come together into something bigger than any of us,” Carrie offered. “It’s not just one event, it’s not just one day, it’s not just one group or one artist. It’s a conglomeration of everybody and everything, and it’s indicative of our capacity to come together and do something like this.”
Inspired by New York City’s Dweller festival (which celebrates Black electronic artists), Carrie wanted to activate Chicago fans as well. The city is known as the birthplace of house music, but it is often left out of conversations regarding flashier contemporary electronic dance music scenes. Sugarwater, then, may serve as a homecoming — a chance for folks both within and outside of the city to celebrate Black electronic music’s foundations, its current-day significance and the Black American liberation from slavery.
Building Sugarwater also reflects Carrie’s broader ethos, one that rejects a scarcity mindset and instead embraces collaboration and connectivity. Rather than considering Sugarwater in competition with other Juneteenth events, Carrie wants others to think of it as providing people options and perhaps catering to diverse crowds that are within — and also celebrate and are allies to — the Black American electronic community.
“Now that I’m in that room, and I’ve got my foot in this door and that door, I’m about to let everybody in,” said Carrie. “And that’s really what I wanted.”
The three-night celebration begins the day before Juneteenth at Podlasie Club on Thursday, June 18, presented with the party Adult Supervision. The evening will feature performances by juke legend DJ Thadz, DJ Heather and Floor Supervisor. The party continues on June 19, with a Club Hospitality and Heartwrench presented evening at Podlasie hosted by Lynzo the Heartthrob and featuring ASL Princess, Byrell the Great and Cobra B. An after-hours party created in collaboration with Spiral Productions, Da Function and Black Skrippa Brigade will also take place at a secret location. The event will close out back at Podlasie Club on Saturday, June 20 for The Grapevine, including sets by Archangel (Bodyhack), Daniro and Syd Falls.
According to Carrie, all of the booked artists align with the vibe and spirit of the celebration.
“I’m not just booking people and being like, ‘Oh, you’re a good DJ,'” Carrie offered. “I’m booking people and thinking, ‘Oh, you’re a good DJ, and you’ve got a good heart. You’ve got good grit. You’ve got some couth.'”
And in the end, that speaks to the larger, deeper meaning of Sugarwater. The dance floor can be a space of fun and escape, but also a space for genuine safety and liberation for Black, queer, transgender and marginalized people, in particular. Sugarwater and the curated, intentionally cultivated dance floors Carrie D. produces for Club Hospitality offer a source of healing, joy, kindness and care.
“Nobody’s looking at you, nobody’s judging how you dance, how you dress, what’s between your legs, how you present yourself, who you are,” Carrie said. And given that we’re amongst like minds, I really do think a party has the power to change people’s lives.”
Britt Julious is a freelance critic.
If you go
Sugarwater runs June 18-20, opening at 9 p.m. at Podlasie Club, 2918 N. Central Park Ave.; tickets $5.50 (Thursday), $11.50 (Friday), $17.25 (Saturday), $33.35 for a 3-day pass, ra.co/events/2450539
