Social Studies has been a staple of the Boston dance music scene for 13 years, serving thoughtful disco, house, and techno to the heads while providing a gateway to dance music for upcoming generations of dancers looking to dig a little deeper. 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 loft party culture that had seen a resurgence in New York. Boston was missing a slice of this scene and soundtrack. Friends from New York like Jacques Renault and Marcos Cabral, Roy Dank, Eli Escobar, and Justin Strauss played disco to techno to a dedicated crowd that returned monthly. As our identity solidified, and the crowd united members of Boston’s previously compartmentalized sub-genre cliques, Social Studies grew to become a spot 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. We’re proud to have seen partygoers move from the dance floor 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. Since 2019 we’ve run our Back 2 Basics series that focuses on amplifying dance music’s current torchbearers and other DJs to watch. As part of this series, we’ve hosted remarkable talents such as gbd (fka Savile), musclecars, Amadeezy, Toribio, JADALAREIGN, livwutang, Kilopatrah Jones, Paurro and Tammy Lakkis. Each party has proved the future is bright. In 2022, we broadened our Social Studies projects, launching a website, zine, and mix series. In this book, you’ll find interviews and linked mixes (in chronological order), in-depth features, and fun tidbits from artists we think are moving the underground in their own authentic way. Dance music and the scene have seen more transformations than we can remember, but today we’re thrilled to keep the best of it alive at the function and in print.