The Good Girls Aren’t Good “For Girls” — They’re Just Good

Written by Vocalo Radio on March 29, 2024

The Good Girls DJs keep the sound and spirit of house music alive, honoring the femme and LGBTQ pioneers who came before them. The Chicago trio celebrated their fourth anniversary this week, and will be performing at ARC Music Festival this summer.

Lori Branch, Lady D and VITIGRRL are the Good Girls, a Chicago DJ trio that’s “not good for girls, just good.” With Branch’s mixes dating back to the ‘80s and Lady D’s back to the mid-‘90s, the DJs have long-standing roots in multiple generations of Chicago house music.

The Good Girls didn’t start out with the goal of forming a trio — they actually first connected when Darlene Jackson, AKA DJ Lady D, had hopes to plan a festival highlighting women and nonbinary members of Chicago’s DJ community. Jackson connected with Branch and Hannah Viti, AKA VITIGRRL with hopes of booking them as performers.

“Lady D talked to me and Hannah about being part of a festival that she wanted to put on for just women called ‘Good Girl DJs,’” Branch recalled.

Although the festival never came to fruition, the three embarked on a mission to prove female DJs are talented in their own right, especially compared to their male counterparts. When Jackson was just beginning her career, female DJs were few and far between. Even in the late 2010s, she noticed audiences were still amazed to see female DJs.

“Around 2017, 2018, 2019, I would be playing out and I was still getting people that would come up to me and be like, ‘I’ve never seen a girl DJ this is so cool,’” she recalled.

^{DJs Lady D (left), Lori Branch (center) and VITIGRRL (right) are the Good Girls, a Chicago DJ trio honoring house music pioneers and keeping the genre’s spirit alive. First two photos courtesy of the DJs, third photo by Erik M. Kommer}

In 2018, Viti fell into college radio while in the master’s program at Northwestern University. Her WNUR radio show featured live mixes using records and CDJ turntables — something she had little experience with. This is also where she met Branch, who had a show right after Viti’s spot. The two became acquainted, and a friendship quickly blossomed.

“[Branch] would come in there with these amazing guests who are pioneers and legends in different areas of house music throughout Chicago and beyond,” Viti recalled. “I feel like she and these other folks were curious, and a friendship and mentorship kind of grew naturally from that.”

^{The DJ trio sits in the Vocalo studio to discuss their roots in Chicago house music and more. Abigail Harrison / Vocalo Radio}

The three women pay homage to house DJs who came before them, specifically the women of color, in their own ways. Branch’s career coincided with the rise of house music in Chicago — beginning as a DJ for Vertigo social club, which hosted dozens of parties in the early ‘80s. Starting out in the ‘90s, Jackson was mentored by Chicago house pioneers Teri Bristol and Valerie Scheinpflug, AKA DJ Psycho-Bitch. And Viti, as part of a younger generation of house DJs, takes notes from the legacy of key figures when crafting her mixes.

“If I’m going to get up there and play something in a city and a Black art form that is so important to our culture, how am I honoring that?” Viti said.

The Good Girls — individually and together — make appearances at events all over the city and are frequent performers at Slo ‘Mo Party, an event group cultivating spaces for queer women and others to connect.

^{Darlene Jackson, AKA DJ Lady D, was previously a host for Vocalo Radio. She’s still a part of the station’s family as a member of the Vocalo DJ collective and regular contributor to the 5 O’Clock Mix, hosted by Jesse De La Peña. Abigail Harrison / Vocalo Radio}

The trio celebrated a performance milestone on Jan. 20 at the United Center during the Chicago Bulls pride night, spinning at halftime alongside narration from Bulls resident DJ Flipside and “The Voice of House Music” Chuck Roberts. Together, the Good Girls told the story of Chicago house music’s past and present in front of 40,000 Chicagoans.

“To tell that story in five and a half minutes with my best girls next to me was just surreal,” Jackson said.

The DJs’ next big venture is a performance at ARC Festival in Chicago’s Union Park. The festival will take place from Aug. 30 to Sept. 1, and feature performances from 70+ DJs — including Terry Hunter, Derrick Carter, Honey Dijon, DJ Heather, Dom Dolla and more — in the home of house music.

The Good Girls celebrated their fourth anniversary on March 27 at Dorian’s in Wicker Park, but first they sat down with Vocalo host Nudia Hernandez to break down their journey.

For more information on the Good Girls, head to goodgirlsdjs.com or follow them @goodgirlsdjs on Instagram.

Interview by Nudia Hernandez

Audio production by Nudia Hernandez

Written introduction by Abigail Harrison and Morgan Ciocca

Photos by Abigail Harrison, edited by Morgan Ciocca