Black to Detroit

Special report: Media and racialization
The media origins of techno
By Alia Benabdellah
English

Techno, created in the early 1980s by African-American musicians in the city of Detroit and inspired both by house music from their neighbours in Chicago and by Detroit’s industrial environment, has enjoyed rapid international development and, along with it, significant media representation. While the initial media narrative did present the genre as a continuation of Black American cultural and artistic production, and revealed the importance of the local media infrastructure in this regard – especially the The Midnight Funk Association radio programme and the television programme The New Dance Show – another media narrative emerged when techno was exported to Europe. Based on interviews and observations in Detroit and Berlin, and from a perspective that pays close attention to the process of racialization in media production, this article shows how the European narrative contributes in whitewashing this musical genre by downplaying foundational Black contributions to it.

  • Detroit
  • black media
  • techno
  • hip-hop
  • media coverage of electronic music
  • whitewashing
  • Berlin
Go to the article on Cairn-int.info