The Hot Mix 5 Story — Part One

CHICAGO, Illinois — In 1981, WBMX program director Lee Michaels assembled five DJs and put their mixing skills on Chicago radio. Forty-five years later, the Hot Mix 5 have a place in the Illinois Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

The group was honored at the Illinois Rock & Roll Museum on Route 66’s September 27, 2026, ceremony at the Harris Theater in Chicago. The museum’s Hall of Fame roster lists the Hot Mix 5 as a 2026 Founders Choice inductee in the Radio Personality / DJ category.

That recognition brings the story back to its beginning: a radio programmer, five distinctive musical personalities and an opportunity to let listeners hear the creativity of the dance floor through their radios.

1981: Five DJs and a place on the air

The original Hot Mix 5 lineup was:

  • Mickey “Mixin” Oliver
  • Kenny “Jammin” Jason
  • Farley “Funkin” Keith, later known as Farley “Jackmaster” Funk, Now The King of House
  • Ralphi “Rockin” Rosario
  • Scott “Smokin” Silz

Michaels, now Radio News Now’s publisher, created the team at WBMX in 1981. Both the museum’s Hot Mix 5 history and Mixmag’s retrospective identify him as its founder and document the original lineup.

WBMX’s 102.7 FM signal served the Chicago area from Oak Park, Illinois. The team’s broadcasts gave the musicianship of mixing a public stage: the selection, sequencing, and blending of records became part of the performance listeners tuned in to hear.

The DJs brought individual identities to a shared name. A listener could follow a favorite mixer while also recognizing the Hot Mix 5 as a team.

The voice around the mixes

Michaels identifies Armando Rivera as the host and voice of Friday Night Jams and the Saturday Night Live Ain’t No Jive Chicago Dance Party. The museum also credits Rivera with hosting the Saturday-night program.

Rivera’s role belongs in this history alongside the five mixers. The records and transitions were central to the experience, but the host helped give the broadcast its identity.

Bringing the dance floor home

The Hot Mix 5’s 1981 launch came early in a musical evolution. The sound and culture associated with Chicago house continued to develop throughout the decade.

In WTTW’s Chicago Stories: House Music — A Cultural Revolution, Rosario recalls submitting tapes to WBMX for months before hearing his own recording on the air and then hearing his name announced. His account captures what a radio opportunity could mean to a young DJ: a mix made privately could suddenly reach an audience.

WBMX extended access beyond the club doors. People who could not attend a particular dance party could still encounter the music and the people shaping it through the broadcasts.

An influence that crossed city lines

In Pitchfork’s oral history of Chicago house and Detroit techno, Kevin Saunderson recalls traveling with Derrick May to hear WBMX’s mixes. Eddie Fowlkes remembers receiving the broadcasts in Kalamazoo, Michigan; Mike Grant describes discovering the music through WBMX tapes.

Their recollections illustrate radio’s influence beyond its immediate audience: listeners could carry the music, and ideas about presenting it, into another city.

Forty-five years later, the story continues

The Illinois honor recognizes a legacy that has outlasted the original broadcast chapter. The Hot Mix 5 name remains part of the history of Chicago radio, DJ performance and house music.

It also leaves a useful question for today’s programmers: who is creating something distinctive in your community, and what might happen if you give that talent room on the air?

This is the first installment in Radio News Now’s Hot Mix 5 series. Follow-up installments will add the participants’ own accounts of the early years, their subsequent careers and the meaning of the recognition 45 years later, along with photographs and video as they become available.

Disclosure: Radio News Now publisher Lee Michaels created the Hot Mix 5 at WBMX in 1981 and is a participant in this history. This installment draws on his recollections, the museum’s published records and the linked historical reporting. The interviews planned for subsequent installments have not yet been conducted.