Canadian singer Drake’s latest album has a techno-house influence. (Photo by Jonathan Short/Invision/AP, File)
Photo: Jonathan Short/AP
The internet exploded last week when Drake unexpectedly dropped his latest album, the techno-inspired “Honestly, Nevermind,” with many expressing surprise that he moved in a tech-house, dance direction.
But the release of Drake’s album provides a reminder that so much of club music, including the machine-like beats of techno which often are associated with Europe, is rooted in the African American experience. In fact, Detroit in the ‘80s was the spawning ground for a movement that would reach far beyond Eight Mile Road to Europe and back again.
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It was a mostly Black group of Motor City kids, influenced by everything from science fiction and the acid-trip funk of George Clinton to German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk, who took ideas associated with the European avant-garde — from minimalism to industrial to “music concrète” — and combined them with an often startling Afro-futurism that resulted in something uniquely their own. (Helping them along was a popular local Detroit radio DJ, Charles Johnson a.k.a. The Electrifying Mojo, who played everything from Kraftwerk to Prince, the B-52’s and The Clash.)
The German electronic band Kraftwerk
Photo: Photo by Sebastian Kahnert/picture alliance via Getty Images, Contributor / picture alliance via Getty Image
While largely ignored at home, the Detroit techno scene — including such acts as Inner City, The Belleville Three, Underground Resistance, Cybotron, Drexciya, Model 500 and many more — bloomed in Europe where it, along with Chicago house music, influenced a new generation of electronic music. Orchestras from France to Australia collaborated with Detroit techno innovators.
This underground musical conversation between America and Europe, Detroit and Dusseldorf — what The Guardian called “a cultural feedback loop” — didn’t rise to the level of being audible for most of the American mainstream but rang loud and clear for global dance-music aficionados.
This isn’t just a matter of long-forgotten history. One of the world’s largest electronic music festivals, Movement, takes place annually in Detroit, attracting up to 100,000 people over its multiple days. To this day, whenever Kraftwerk tours, Detroit is always on the itinerary. And, a half-world away, intriguing electronic music is being crafted by a new generation of Black performers in sub-Saharan Africa such as EA Wave, KMRU, Hama and Ethiopian Records
With that in mind, here are 15 of the Detroit techno acts worth investigating. Click here for a curated Spotify playlist of Detroit techno, or search on Spotify for “A Detroit Techno Collection.”
The Belleville Three — The group featuring the three titans of Detroit techno — Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May, Juan Atkins — that is credited with kickstarting the Detroit techno scene. More recently, they reassembled to work on a track with Depeche Mode.
US DJ Jeff Mills (L) poses with his French bandmaster Christophe Maglou ahead of the Choregies Festival in the Roman theater in Orange, southeastern France, on July 10, 2019. – Electro music pioneer Jeff Mills will present his concert “Light From The Outside World” with the Regional Orchestra d’Avignon at the Choregies Festival, the oldest French lyric art festival, on July 11, 2019.
Photo: Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)/AFP via Getty Images
Jeff Mills: Mills changed the game, and expanded the sonic palette of techno, by collaborating with France’…….
Source: https://preview.houstonchronicle.com/music/techno-has-black-roots-a-goethe-pop-up-brings-17244816