Assembling a black counter culture - deforrest brown

In this critical history, DeForrest Brown, Jr makes techno Black again by tracing the musics origins in Detroit and beyond In Assembling a Black Counter Culture , writer and musician DeForrest Brown, Jr, provides a history and critical analysis of techno and adjacent electronic music such as house and electro, showing how the genre has been shaped over time by a Black American musical sensibility.

Brown revisits Detroits 1980s techno scene to highlight pioneering groups like the Belleville Three before jumping into the origins of todays international club floor to draw important connections between industrialized labor systems and cultural production.

Among the other musicians discussed are Underground Resistance (Mad Mike Banks, Cornelius Harris), Drexciya, Juan Atkins (Cybotron, Model 500), Derrick May, Jeff Mills, Robert Hood, Detroit Escalator Co.

(Neil Ollivierra), DJ Stingray/Urban Tribe, Eddie Fowlkies, Terrence Dixon (Population One) and Carl Craig.

With references to Theodore Roszaks Making of a Counter Culture , writings by African American autoworker and political activist James Boggs, and the techno rebels of Alvin Tofflers Third Wave, Brown approaches technos unique history from a Black theoretical perspective in an effort to evade and subvert the racist and classist status quo in the mainstream musical-historical record.

The result is a compelling case to make techno Black again.

DeForrest Brown, Jr is a New York-based theorist, journalist and curator.

He produces digital audio and extended media as Speaker Music and is a representative of the Make Techno Black Again campaign.