David Mancuso, Iconic DJ and Founder of the Loft, Has Died at 72

David Mancuso, 72-year-old celebrated DJ and founder of New York’s iconic party The Loft, has died, sources close to Mancuso have confirmed to THUMP.

Since the late 60s, Mancuso has been lauded as a selector, but his founding of the Loft on February 14, 1970 placed him at the forefront of New York’s burgeoning underground club scene. Unlike the commercial clubs that existed at the time, Mancuso’s Loft parties were private, providing a space for its members—often queer people—to dance without the threat of police interference. Over the decades of its existence, the Loft, and Mancuso at the center of them, became a hub for New York music, inspiring the many decades of DJs and parties that’d be thrown across the five boroughs in its wake.

A rare interview with Red Bull Music Academy in 2013 credited Mancuso with the inspiring, in part, the rise of DJing as a legitimate art form in its own right, and the Loft’s audiophile approach to live sound no doubt inspired many of the pristine systems that have filled the world’s best clubs ever since.

DJs across the world have already taken to social media to mourn the loss of, as Beats in Space’s Tim Sweeney put it, “the original New York disco DJ.”

The cause of death has not been made public at press time.