chicago skyway

(Sean Hernandez)

Sean Hernandez grew up on Chicago’s North Side in a perfect storm of musical influences: his father was a rock/punk musician, his mother loved disco and his neighborhood was filled with Puerto Rican music playing around the clock.

As he grew older, Sean was electrified by the legendary WBMX radio mixes, which cultivated an entire generation of Chicago DJs, producers and dance music fans. It wasn’t long before he found his way to the fabled nightclub Medusa’s and signed his name on the dotted line.

Obsessed with the house sound, Sean studied how it was made, first buying turntables, then a TR-909 drum machine, and finally skipping meals in order to buy more gear. He spent hours attempting to recreate Ron Trent’s Altered States, Larry Heard’s Beyond the Clouds and Adonis’s No Way Back, trying to figure out “what made these songs funk.”

He quickly became a regular fixture on the DJ scene, blending deep house with disco and Detroit techno. In the mid-‘90s, he organized the hugely popular night Kream. Cajmere appeared frequently, often debuting the latest Relief Records releases, along with Gene Farris and Spencer Kinsey (aka Gemini). In the late ‘90s, Sean formed the crew Krush Productions to revitalize the underground scene with a slew of well-received events.

He has since retired from event promotion in favor of producing tracks under the name Chicago Skyway. In 2009, he released two albums including Bells on Eargasmic Recordings and Heavens on M>O>S Recordings and most recently his Londinium EP on Uzuri Recordings.