In the 1980s, when he was still a teenager, Englewood native Taigo Onez got involved in Chicago music by joining what’s now the city’s oldest hip-hop community group, Chi-ROCK Nation. He dabbled in every hip-hop element—breaking, DJing, MCing, and graffiti writing—but he’d adopt music as his calling card. He made beats for emerging local MCs in the late 1980s and early 1990s, during which time he also had a foot in Chicago house—and back then, those two scenes saw each other as rivals. As a DJ, producer, and engineer, Taigo has continued to straddle multiple musical worlds. These days he runs a label he calls Bang Le’ Dex Recordings and serves as the electronic format chief for WHPK 88.5 FM.
As told to Leor Galil
My whole family, everybody is musical. My grandmother sang jazz. My aunt used to pop-lock when I was a kid. I was heavily off into being a B-boy in the early 80s. My uncle happens to be one of the godfathers of house music . . . Larry Heard, Mr. Fingers.
Originally it was several different crews that I was interested in early on. But Chi-ROCK, if you were from the south side, they were just grabbing the crème de la crème of hip-hop artists in Chicago. You practiced all elements in the 80s. If you were a B-boy, you became a graffiti writer . . . an MC or DJ. I did all the elements. I would guess I was good at it, ’cause I got picked up—I think I was 14. Around 2017, 2018, I was vice president.
[Joining Chi-ROCK] gave me a work ethic—quite a bit of it, ’cause I was doing a whole lot of production. At the time, the underground was the mainstream. A lot of us were trying to get deals—in high school, out of high school. It was a competitive edge. You had to be dope; product had to be top-notch. Me working on Record Row at 17 helped catapult my name through things—not just in Chi-ROCK, but in the city and then throughout the industry, eventually. From what I heard, I was the youngest producer to ever work on Record Row.
I worked at Smooth Sounds Recording Studio [at] 1900 South Michigan [in 1991]. Within the year of me working there, [it relocated to a space] across the street at the former One-derful Records building. We ended up taking the whole top floor.
My uncle would engineer all of my demos. But he had this busy career. “Mystery of Love” had taken off. He relicensed it to DJ International, and then all the stuff with Trax. At some point, I couldn’t constantly bother him to do my demos. The last few sessions, he’s like, “OK, you gotta pay attention, ’cause you’re gonna have to start doing this for yourself.”
I had these wonderfully mixed demos. One night, I was at the studio, and I gave the owner one, and he was like, “I need you to come and work here. I need an engineer quick, fast, and in a hurry. I’ll pay you $10 an hour.” Which was a lot of money for a kid in ’91. So I took the piece of equipment in the room, and it was a crash course—headfirst, feet deep in, and learn everything quick.
A lot of times you [couldn’t] get on these concert lineups in the 90s. Unless you had huge records out, it was next to impossible to get in bed with Jam [Productions] to get yourself on one of their stages at the time. So we started throwing our own concerts.
Then the industry shifted. I got into a level of stress with it and got disheartened by the change. I backed up for a little while. I would take a job here and there, doing production or engineering at certain studios. I focused more on DJing and less on being an artist or producer anymore. I stopped producing around ’95.
In ’99, I started working for [the label] Foxes and Hounds, which was [owned by] Nature Love—she went by Kacie Nemesis. She was a house music artist. She was in the old recording studio space that I was working in at Smooth Sounds, at 1900.
A friend of mine named Bruce always wanted to show off to his uncle: “I have a producer, he’s dope. I am an artist—you gonna believe in me.” We went by [his uncle’s place] one night, and I just happened to have my DAT. His uncle was like, “Oh, so this is the guy you’ve been talking about? Whatchu got?” He pops the DAT in, and then he gets on the phone, and he calls Nature. She’s this beautiful burst of energy, probably one of the best singers I’ve ever known; you can hear her coming through the landline. He’s like, “Nature, I got this boy over here, and he’s playing these tracks, and they fuunkaaay.” She was like, “Put him on the phone.” I get on the phone—she was like, “You better come see me right now.” So me and Bruce drive to 1900, and she gave me a key again, said, “Come on back to work.”
“You had to be dope; product had to be top-notch. Me working on Record Row at 17 helped catapult my name through things—not just in Chi-ROCK, but in the city and then throughout the industry.”
A lot of the artists that I worked with [early on] kinda catapulted from there. So with that, my name goes with them. You would hear our names at industry functions, and we were at every industry function as well. [In high school] I was producing this group called the Ultimate Posse, which was these two kids from Prosser High School; one of them became DaWreck from Triple Darkness, and the other was Neva from Crucial Conflict.
I hadn’t seen them since we were all in high school. They ended up having some commercial success, and I hadn’t seen them for years. We were doing an open mike on 69th and Winchester, of all places. Kingdom Rock [is] a close friend of mine—he runs the Chicago Hip Hop Heritage Museum with Artistic and Brian Gorman. I’m doing sound for this open mike, and [Kingdom’s] like, “Yo, T, I want to introduce you to DaWreck from Triple Darkness.” I look him in the face, and he looks at Kingdom, and he tells Kingdom, “This is my first producer.” I hugged him, ’cause I hadn’t seen him in so many years. I asked him how Neva was doing. Crucial Conflict sold 3.5 million records—it was a great, great, great thing to see that coming to fruition, ’cause this is an extension of myself as well.
At the time, [in the late 80s and early 90s,] a lot of us had to hide the fact that we loved hip-hop and house at the same time. There were some uncomfortable moments for me, because I’m a kid; Mr. Fingers is my uncle. Some people might come by and, “Oh, you do hip-hop”—here comes the negativity. Same thing from the hip-hop people, like, “OK, Mr. ‘Jack My Body.’” It was always this issue. We just did a documentary on that, actually: It’s Different in Chicago, [directed by] David Weathersby. I’ve got a bunch of tracks on the soundtrack as well.
It was tough to navigate, but it eventually panned out. This is where the Internet helped that bridge, because hip-hop and house music both share a marriage with disco. Same thing with electro and techno. Bang Le’ Dex, I have a myriad of artists from around the world on the label. Techno, what we knew of it, coming from out of Detroit, was the electro we were breakdancing to—all of this proper electro would just be the gateway for me with techno as well. In Chicago, we had what we called “tracks”—we thought it was house, and eventually those started getting thrown into a techno category as well. It was this whole marriage of electronic music all coming from the same place, because hip-hop was electronic at one time too. It panned out, but it was difficult for a long time.
Hip-hop taught me ownership. My uncle would always say, “You need to send me something.” He led by example as well and launched his own label. He was always like, “You need to send me something, Taigo. We can put it out.” But I felt like I wouldn’t be doing him a service either if I piggybacked him. I had to do my own label. I’ve had several, but Bang Le’ Dex is the one that I’ve put my heart and soul into. We’ve only had one hip-hop release on there so far, but I plan to do more in the very near future.
My goal with Bang Le’ Dex was to make it about DJ culture and not just electronic music. I want it to encompass production, I want it to encompass DJ battling, discussions about vintage gear, audio, painting, fashion. I want it to be this imprint that was what you saw on Beat Street or Breakin’. Or the whole era from Dapper Dan, or what was happening in Chicago with Barbara Bates and Jay Boogie—all of these fashion imprints that were here that were rockin’ out all this stuff. I wanted Bang Le’ Dex to represent that part of Chicago that I knew, where it was fly. Music was dope, it was conscious with a hood edge, but it didn’t cross the line into programming behaviors. Like, I wanna be a part of the quality that represents the heart and soul of honorable Chicago.
The most recent Bang Le’ Dex release is this label compilation from February 2025.
I’ve been going to WHPK since I was 12 years old. I’ve known JP [Chill, former WHPK DJ and founder of hip-hop show The Essence,] since I was a kid; all of us used to take our demos to WHPK when we were children. My progression over the years, whatever stage I was in my career, I have to go, “This is what I’m doing now, JP. Let’s play this.”
Then ’08, I had been trying to find him, ’cause I did this remix on a Royce da 5’9” song. He finally called, and he was like, “Taigo, I’m leaving, and if you don’t take the show, I’m closing the format.” I picked up the responsibility, and that was 2009.
Now we have [hip-hop shows] Industry Shakedown and CTA Radio. Buddy Finch. Mario Gage took over for me on The Essence when I left—it became the longest-running rap-radio format in the world, according to the FCC, still to this day.
The rap format is thriving. We have a wonderful electronic format. We have some things that we are taking care of. There are some ups and downs, but we’re getting things back on track. Our signal is strong. We’ve got a great lineup, a great roster of DJs, a whole lot of talent there that is budding. We’re ironing out the technical difficulties, so to speak.
What keeps me motivated is the inspiration that I’m getting from the younger generations—there are some really talented kids out here. I was that kid who knew my avenues were limited, so I want to make sure I have an outlet for them—and an outlet for people of all ages, creeds, colors, shapes, sizes, everything, who are just dope. Let’s be dope together.
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