The Best House DJs of 2026.
House music built the modern night. These hands hold the deeds.
A photography house ranking house DJs. The pun was sitting right there; the list took longer. Thirty names that define house music in 2026: lineage first, then the main rooms, then the new wave.
House music grew out of Chicago in the early 1980s, and most tellings trace the name to the Warehouse, the club where Frankie Knuckles played. Four decades on it is the world’s default good time: which makes it easy to play adequately and hard to play well. This index is about the second group.
What counts as house here
Anything that keeps the four-four pulse and the Chicago lineage in sight: deep, soulful, tech, garage-adjacent. Purists may quibble at the borders. That is what borders are for. The order weighs the same three things as the flagship hundred: the room, the records, the range. And, as everywhere in the House Indexes: no press photography. Words only, until we shoot the rooms ourselves.
Nos. 1–12, The lineage
Kerri Chandler
Deep house’s sitting monarch
The kick drum with a soul.
New Jersey-raised and never bettered on warmth. His 2022 album Spaces and Places was recorded around the world’s great club booths, a love letter with a tracklist. The Kaoz Theory boss remains the sound young deep house wants to be when it grows up.
Honey Dijon
Chicago’s emissary
History with a couture finish.
Raised in Chicago, sharpened in New York, credited on Beyoncé’s Renaissance. Her Classic Music Company records carry the lineage forward without embalming it. Nobody wears the genre’s history more lightly, or plays it with more intent.
Louie Vega
Masters At Work
New York house, first edition.
The Bronx’s own, one half of Masters At Work with Kenny Dope, and the engine of Nuyorican Soul. Latin percussion, gospel lift, disco manners: the full inheritance, still touring.
Danny Tenaglia
The marathon man
Queens’ greatest endurance artist.
The sets run long because the stories do. A DJ’s DJ who treats ten hours as a reasonable opening statement.
David Morales
Def Mix royalty
The remix as main event.
Grammy-winning remixer, New York to his bones, and proof that the version can outlive the original when the right hands hold it.
Todd Terry
The blueprint
Sampled the future into existence.
Brooklyn’s Todd the God wired hip-hop’s cut-and-paste into house, and his rework of Everything But The Girl’s “Missing” never left the floor.
Roger Sanchez
The S-Man
House music’s best-dressed heartbreak.
“Another Chance” went to number one in the UK in 2001 and still fills a terrace at dusk. The catalogue behind it is just as sharp.
Derrick Carter
Chicago’s technician
Swing you can set your watch to.
Second-generation Chicago at its most fluent: boompty basslines, immaculate hands, zero ceremony.
Mark Farina
Mushroom Jazz
The mellowest institution in house.
Chicago-born, San Francisco-formed. The Mushroom Jazz mix series built a whole ecosystem of Sunday afternoons.
Green Velvet
The surrealist
“Percolator” remains a legal high.
Curtis Jones, twice over: Cajmere for the classics, Green Velvet for the mischief. Chicago’s id, fully licensed.
Moodymann
Detroit’s auteur
Plays like the city taught him personally.
KDJ, Mahogani Music, and a masterclass in keeping soul music’s fingerprints on the four-four.
MK
The rework king
The dub mix as a life’s work.
Detroit-born Marc Kinchen cut his teeth in the early nineties, then watched his Nightcrawlers rework become a permanent fixture of British nightlife. Deserved.
Nos. 13–21, The main room
Jamie Jones
The landlord of groove
Tech house’s best-dressed institution.
Hot Creations, Hot Natured, and Paradise at DC-10. The Welshman gave the genre a wardrobe and kept its swing.
The Martinez Brothers
Joy, in stereo
New York swing, exported properly.
Bronx brothers raised on the music by their father; Cuttin’ Headz keeps the family business honest.
Seth Troxler
The wit
Personality as a musical instrument.
Michigan-raised, globally amused, and still one of the sharpest house-and-techno selectors of his generation.
The Blessed Madonna
The believer
Church optional, attendance full.
From Kentucky rave flyers to “Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing)” with Fred again.. and 2024’s Godspeed. Conviction you can dance to.
Hot Since 82
Yorkshire’s export
Melodic tech house, reliably excellent.
Daley Padley’s Knee Deep In Sound made him a fixture of every serious summer bill.
Patrick Topping
Newcastle’s energy
Big-room house with a Geordie grin.
The Trick label boss plays honest, high-energy house without a gram of cynicism.
Chris Lake
The craftsman
Tech house without the beige.
The Briton behind Black Book Records builds records like furniture: functional, finished, quietly expensive.
Sam Divine
Defected’s resident voice
House music’s most dependable host.
The long-serving Defected resident and radio host carries the label’s songs-first faith to every booth she enters.
Michael Bibi
London’s heartbeat
The comeback nobody will forget.
Solid Grooves co-founder; cancer-free after his 2023 diagnosis and back to a sold-out Finsbury Park by June 2024. London’s favourite homecoming.
Nos. 22–30, The new wave
Fisher
The grin
Mayhem with a production budget.
“Losing It” earned the Grammy nomination; the delivery earns the encores. The Australian remains a one-man weather event.
John Summit
The work rate
From spreadsheets to Madison Square Garden.
Chicago-raised, Garden-headlining as of 2024, and running Experts Only like a growth company with taste.
Dom Dolla
Hooks that hold
Melbourne’s tidiest export.
Grammy-nominated house with actual jokes in it. “Saving Up” is the calling card; the consistency is the career.
Sonny Fodera
The smooth operator
House music that behaves beautifully.
Adelaide-born, Solotoko-branded, and permanently mid-tour.
TSHA
The finisher
Polish without gloss.
Ninja Tune signee with a fabric mix to her name; house records that feel hand-sewn.
Folamour
Lyon’s optimist
Disco as a public service.
Joy at festival scale, meant sincerely, delivered in French.
Mochakk
Fast hands
Showmanship the internet couldn’t exaggerate.
São Paulo state’s card sharp: technique first, charisma immediately after.
Eliza Rose
The voice
A UK number one from the record shop counter.
“B.O.T.A. (Baddest Of Them All)” topped the UK chart in 2022: East London garage-house with a lineage and a grin.
Chloé Caillet
The multi-instrumentalist
Musicality first; the party follows.
French-American, properly schooled, and one of the new wave’s most complete players.
The flagship hundred is next door.
Thirty is the genre. One hundred is the year. The house’s full annual ranking (techno institutions, melodic headliners, the lot) sits in the flagship index.
Open the Top 100 →The fine print
Refreshed through the year; the date stamp above is honest. Facts checked against the public record; order is the house’s opinion; no placement is for sale. Corrections through the contact page, gladly.
Companion volumes: Top 100 DJs of 2026 and Top DJs for Summer 2026, Listed. We sell photographs, not line-ups. The wall is through there. →
i.Where it lives,destinations.
iii.The seasons,in conversation.
v.From the magazinein the same room.
Questions, asked of the editors.
By the house’s editorial judgement: the rooms they held, the records they released, and how far the sets travel. No poll, no submissions, no fees.
Anything keeping the four-four pulse and the Chicago lineage in sight: deep, soulful, tech and garage-adjacent styles included. The borders are argued over; that is what borders are for.
It grew out of Chicago in the early 1980s, and most tellings trace the name to the Warehouse, the club where Frankie Knuckles played. The lineage chapter of this index is where our opinion meets that history.
No. This is the independent, in-house opinion of The Good Season, unaffiliated with any poll, platform or trade title.
No, we are a photography house. We sell hand-framed prints; bookings belong with each artist’s agency.
House rule: we publish our own photography, not press shots. Entries stand on words until we have shot the rooms ourselves.
The chapter, on paper. hand-framed.
See the Most Wanted →A photograph is a memory you can hang. A short list off the wall, closest in spirit to Best House DJs of 2026: museum-grade pigment prints, hand-finished in oak.
How an index is made.
- i.
The Long List
Each index begins with a brief and a longlist three times the published length. Submissions, scouts, and members.
- ii.
The Visit
Nothing makes the index without a visit, a verified guest, or a documented reservation in the last twelve months.
- iii.
The House
Editors weigh atmosphere, value, and the quality of the room. Stars and rosettes are noted but rarely decisive.
- iv.
The Cull
Entries that have softened, scaled, or stopped answering the phone are removed. We re-rank, we don't pad.
“We don’t rank the largest. We rank the rooms we’d actually return to, the houses we’d happily lend, and the addresses we’d quietly give a friend. The Indexes are kept short on purpose.”
For the record: citation and HTML embed for anyone quoting Index No. 03 in print or online.
The Good Season. (August 2026). Index No. 03: Best House DJs of 2026. The House Indexes, Vol. IV (IX-100-26). https://thegoodseason.co.uk/season/indexes/best-house-djs-of-2026
<blockquote cite="https://thegoodseason.co.uk/season/indexes/best-house-djs-of-2026" data-tgs-index="IX-100-26" style="border-left:3px solid #1E3A37;padding:12px 16px;margin:0;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"> <a href="https://thegoodseason.co.uk/season/indexes/best-house-djs-of-2026" style="color:#1D1D1B;text-decoration:none;font-weight:600;">Best House DJs of 2026</a> <span style="display:block;font-size:12px;color:#7E7A73;margin-top:4px;">Index No. 03 · The House Indexes · <a href="https://thegoodseason.co.uk" style="color:#7E7A73;">The Good Season</a></span> </blockquote>