#4 Toni Shelton | ”Everybody Has Somewhere to Go"

Toni Shelton, known throughout Chicago as Disco Tony, has been throwing parties since 1979. As the city's first solo female house music promoter, she's built a legacy that spans over four decades: the flyers with her face on them, the DJ battles, the iconic all-white parties that have brought Chicago's South Side community together for twenty years running.

But behind the magnetic presence and the bright red lipstick is a story that starts much harder. Toni lost her mother at seven years old. By seventeen, her grandmother was gone too, leaving her to navigate the world on her own terms. She finished high school. She went to college. She picked up a camera at nine and never put it down. And somehow, in the midst of finding her footing, she created a place where everybody else could feel at home.

In this conversation around host Lori Branch's kitchen table, Toni opens up about grief, resilience, and what it really means to be a promoter. Not just booking venues and printing flyers, but mothering a community before she ever had children of her own. Because when you grow up with nowhere to go, you learn how to build the place yourself.