Techno Is Black Music: How Detroiters Are Keeping The True Legacy Of Techno Alive

Detroit, the birthplace of techno, is facing the pressures of gentrification.
Willie Orlando Ford, CC BY

For over two decades, Detroit has celebrated its status as the birthplace of techno with an electronic music festival held over Memorial Day weekend.

But like the city around it, the festival has changed. At its inception, the event was free and focused on techno music and Detroit musicians, primarily the Black Americans who started techno – just as house music was developing in Chicago – in the mid-1980s.