Gay house mix. Social Media
Anthemic, loud and brimming with soul, diva house - also known as handbag house - is a genre that takes on the task of preaching the warm and accepting gospel of our universal clubland ethos. Bringing themes of love, acceptance and power to the dancefloor, diva house is a bombastic clash of four-four beats that greets the uplifting forces of funk and disco. Popularized during the mainstreaming of gay culture in the s, the subgenre was, according to dance music historian Bill Brewster , instrumental in turning clubbing into a "mainstream leisure activity. The term handbag house, however, was born out of a broad disdain for the genre. It refers to the notion of a group of female revelers dancing around a pile of their handbags on the dancefloor and was used in a derogatory and misogynistic fashion by underground purists who took a disliking to the genre's mainstream influences.