Techno has Black roots. Drake is just the latest to flower.
It began in 1980s Detroit with a small, tight-knit group of artists pioneering a fusion of electronics and rhythm that would ignite a movement
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 machinelike 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.
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 avantgarde — from minimalism to industrial to “musique concrète” — and combined them with an often startling Afrofuturism that resulted in something uniquely their own. (Helping them along was a popular local Detroit radio DJ, Charles Johnson, aka The Electrifying Mojo, who played everything from Kraftwerk to Prince, the B-52’s and The Clash.)
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. For a curated Spotify playlist of Detroit techno, search on Spotify for “A Detroit Techno Collection.”
The Belleville Three: The group features the three titans of Detroit techno — Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May,
Juan Atkins — credited with kick-starting the Detroit techno scene. More recently, the group reassembled to work on a track with Depeche Mode.
Inner City: One of several post-Belleville groups involving Saunderson, the project enjoyed one of the biggest crossover successes in the Detroit scene, with such sweetly melodic tracks as “Big Fun” and “Good Life,” as well as, more recently, the steamroller of a dance track with Idris Elba, “We All Move Together.”
Juan Atkins: Like Saunderson and May, Atkins had his hands in many musical pots. Yet he also released several influential tracks, such as “Track Ten,” under his own name.
Derrick May: His “Strings of Life” track is a classic of the genre and was a huge hit in British dance clubs. He also recorded under the name Rhythim Is Rhythim.
Jeff Mills: Mills changed the game — and expanded the sonic palette of techno — by collaborating with France’s Montpellier Philharmonic Orchestra and the Regional Orchestra d’Avignon. Mills and May also went on to work with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Underground Resistance: A secretive collective of various Detroit producers/musician, UR combines science fiction, social consciousness and a tight, Teutonic groove — it’s not for nothing that one of their best tracks is called “Afro-Germanic” — into an irresistible force.
Moodymann: A current star of the scene, Moodymann (Kenny Dixon Jr.) crafts jazzy, souful R&B beats that feel like a throwback to another era.
Carl Craig: A prominent remixer (working with the likes of Depeche Mode and
Tori Amos), Craig released several essential albums, including “Landcruising” and “More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art.” Like
Mills, he also collaborated with a French orchestra, Les Siècles.
Eddie Fowlkes: This performer dubbed his blend of Detroit techno and house music “techno soul.”
Aux 88: This group’s postKraftwerk rhythms are particularly infectious on “Electro Slaves” and “Step Into the Light.”
Drexciya: Though their music was largely instrumental, the duo of Gerald Donald and the late James Stinson created a concept involving Black babies, whose mothers had been thrown overboard from slave ships, living underwater.
Kenny Larkin: While Larkin could be as spacy and minimalist as his cohorts, he could be more traditionally soulful and jazzy as well on songs such as “Cirque du Soul” and “Flip Flop.”
Model 500: Under this moniker, Atkins created some of his most Kraftwerk-inspired grooves, such as “Time Space Transmat.”
Cybotron: The collaboration between Atkins and Richard “3070” Davis resulted in the classic Detroit techno tracks “Clear” and “R9.”
Robert Hood: A co-founder of Underground Resistance (along with Jeff Mills and exParliament-Funkadelic bassist Mad Mike Mills), Hood specializes in a stripped-down, minimalist style of techno.