Techno Black

Despite the marketed perception of Berlin as a city overflowing with techno music;until the 80s the city's music scene was dominated by rock music with artists like Van Morrison, Sinead O'connor and Pink Floyd performing in celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. A. F. N, American Forces Network, a free radio and television service, setup by the United States Military in Germany in 1945,was influential to the German people who were exposed to exported American music for the first time and specifically, experienced the wealth of Black music that had been contained and distributed by the American music industry. Jazz, Funk, Soul, Disco, Hip Hop, House, Techno and Popular music as constructed by Berry Gordy and Norman Whitfield at Detroit Motown Records.

My goal is to share immersive photo stills, moving panoramas and sound.

Techno Black, excavates and explores the unique and total nature of the circumstances that birthed the movement: touching on everything from Detroit’s heritage as the home of Fordist automation and the rhythm of the production line, to the influence of the Motown artists, and the city’s groundbreaking icon, Aretha Franklin. Embedded in black, working and middle class experience, it became an expression of revolutionary hope and optimism. With traces of different recordings,
and stills, I will create a spiky collage of intersecting narratives and conceptual frameworks that offers more than an origin story of techno, but rather a ‘cosmic archaeology’.

Techno Black

Part one of Admire Ncube’s essay on origins of Black Music

Terry SmithDecember 11, 2021