More Techno and Race...

So last night we went to see Underground Resistance play for free in Highland park.

They did a very jazzy set under the name Timeline, with a saxophone player and

a slick, flowy guy on keyboards. It was a nice mix of techno and free jazz. After that the

revelation of the night came on, DJ Al Ester. Swinging and dancing like a madman,

he played a very housey set, with singing divas and all, but the way he mixed it, and how

much fun he had with the FX's and taking out the high's, mid's and low's in a super synchronized

set was a true joy! After that the highlight of the night was supposed to be Juan Atkins

"the Godfather of techno" as he was announced, who was part of the legendary "Belleville Three", the other two being Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. But this was a sad, sad affair to have to watch, Juan couldn't mix two tracks

together to save his life, and he dropped records on the floor, had the needle skipping back and forth on a track for bout 20 seconds (which is a loooooooong time if you're DJ ing in front of a extremely knowledgeable crowd (I am not talking about me here...hehehe)).

A couple of times UR's manager Cornelius, who was the MC of the night between the acts had to try to save his ass, by encouraging people AND Juan to get into it again. Juan just looked lost and looked as if he was suffering more than we did. I TOO mix like shit, but at least I do it because I think that is they way it should sound, it is part of my "vision" (or lack of it) and I am really into it while DJing, but with Juan it was just painful. He seemed to be totally somewhere else. He fucked up a reunion of "the Belleville 3" at Awakenings in Amsterdam, by mixing like crap and just not being present. It was extra sad because you could really feel the potential of the music, the track selection was awesome, his own mega hits

as Cybotron "alleys of your mind" and "cosmic cars" and Kraftwerks "numbers" boomed out of the system, and for a moment you felt "wow" this is why I came to Detroit, to be able to hear Juan Atkins pump Kraftwerk into a beautiful summer night at Highland park. But the overwhelming feeling was one of sadness. Well at least Underground Resistance and DJ Al Ester was blockrocking!!! After that we went to the incredibly sleazy temple bar in the most run down part of town, an AMAZING bar! So the night was still perfect in the end.

I was talking with a Dutch artist who now lives in Detroit,

as we were dancing in front of the stage.

We were SOooOoooo surprised to see so few people at the festival.

If you have Underground Resistance, Juan Atkins and DJ Al Ester (trust me he is one for the future) playing for FREE on a warm beautiful summer night in Vondelpark, you would probably be able to get more than 80 people to show up???!!!

Ok..earlier in the evening there were more, and it also had to do with Juan Atkins crappy set, but STILL???!!!.

One of the reasons that she came to Detroit was her love for techno, the same as me.

And it's a story often told, Detroit Techno is HUGE in Europe and Asia but has soooo little support in Detroit itself (or the rest of USA for that matter).

Last weekend I went to a Chicago house picnic festival IN Chicago.

The 21st annual edition of the Chicago House Music picnic and it was PACKED!!!!

Even though you had to pay 10 $ to get in, 1000s of people were grooving and dancing to Frankie Knuckles and the Chosen Few among others.

And what was also very interesting, I was the ONLY white person at this picnic, I am serious!!??

Here...check this video from last years picnic and try to spot any honkies...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQUZqbLX8CQ

I don't know why race, class and music is so interesting to me, but you could make tons of anthropological studies on this subject and it would be very revealing. Rio de Janeiro was another very interesting case, with its Baile Funk, Samba and Bossa Nova, but Brazil is much more racially mixed than Europe and USA.

The Brazilians that we had living with us in Bijlmer last summer in Flatstation were shocked to see the extreme separation between the very black Bijlmer and the very white grachtengordel,

they couldn't believe it!

see for more information...

http://www.fffuck.org/projects/brazilian-air-program-0

http://www.flatstation.nl/agenda

http://www.fatform.com

Anyhow...So Chicago house music has MASSIVE local, black support and Detroit very little local, black support. At the Underground Resistance concert, there was a bunch of De.Bug t-shirts and European football shirts (soccer), which made you suspect that at least part of the audience were European fans who had come a long way to see this spectacle.

So why does Chicago House connect and Detroit techno not?

While in Chicago we also went to see Moodyman, a DJ using the Chicago sound, though originally from Detroit and according to his wikipedia page...

"He is outspoken on the current state of dance music, decrying the lack of black techno and the white domination of the genre."

and...

"An outspoken voice in the normally non-confrontational world of electronic dance music, Moodymann (Kenny Dixon Jr.) is committed to keeping a distinctly black imprint on techno and house."

So for all of us who thought house was..."one nation under a groove" where race, gender, class and sexual orientation would all be absolved into one fruity love juice drink.

Moodyman is again bringing RACE into the mix!

I once read a very interesting little piece about house music in De Appels F.R David publication

where someone wrote a piece about house music debunking the myth of all the love bullshit, saying something like...house was born out of an atmosphere of racism, homophobia, transvestites trying to save enough money to go to Brazil to do sex changes,gay prostitution, drug addictions, and suicides...so this "love dream" surrounding house music needs to be at least more nuanced. If someone knows who wrote this text I am happy to include the name

(I couldn't find it) in this text.

After the Moodyman concert me and Chris had a small after party together with two black transvestites and a white gay guy in their very tiny appartment.

Stumbling out into the bright day light the morning after, I thought we had a very fitting ending to a night out in Chicago, sampling the local house music scene.

But I DO have a little theory as to why Chicago is so succesful and Detroit less so when it comes to hooking up to local (black) support. Chicago house music is much more linked to soul, gospel and R n B. Tons of screaming little divas who sing on top of the house tracks, so the links to other classical black forms of music is very clear. Detroit Techno's VERY obvious flirtations with Kraftwerk (especially) and European (white) electro pop and new romantic music (as they called it in the UK). Takes the music into an another direction, less rooted in classical black music forms.

Detroit techno is much less connected to classical black music styles such as Gospel and Soul. On the other hand it is very much connected to the ideas of "Afrofuturism"that you can find in the works of Sun Ra, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Funkadelic & Parliament, Africa Bambaataa or even Grace Jones.

There is something very sad about the state of music, if we STILL have to discuss race and music, as in...

Can black people sing the opera and country music?

Can white people techno?

Can white people rap and sing reggae?

Just like we whites know what we mean by a whigger (me?!), someone who totally wants to jump into blackness, Detroit techno kids could possibly be seen by the local black population as bounty's

(brown on the outside, white on the inside).

But this is not something I know enough about, but I will research this further here in Detroit.

The problem with this kind of knowledge is that it is often not spoken out loud, it is a gut feeling, and maybe something that you would not say to a white person (if you were black).

But on the other hand these stereotypes DO play a role and to try to totally ignore this debate would do a disservice to the development of music and the ideas surrounding it. In the case of Techno I think that black Detroit Techno stars are TOTALLY accepted in Europe and no one even thinks of race

as an issue in techno, whereas in Detroit I get the feeling that the black population in general thinks that the local techno kids got a bit TOO close to European electronic music, as if they were not proud enough of "their own" musical heritage.

Almost like a sort of betrayal, and of course betrayal is different if you are part of the majority

i.e. whites going black, than if you are a supressed minority, blacks switching to white music.

But to even be able to TALK like this we would have to accept certain musics as "white" and "black" and I think this could be very dangerous. BUT...on the other hand it could ALSO be dangerous to NOT see the history of music and its links to its past. How could you understand reggae or hip hop OUTSIDE a context of racism and the history of the oppression of black people?

I guess it is important to understand where a music comes from and its roots and history, but music is in its essence is universal and it explains why hip hop now works as a great vehicle of expression for oppressed people all over the world, be it Banlieu kids of Arab descent in Paris or Palestinians in Israel.

And I think THIS brings me back to my old argument...Europeans are VERY good at contemporary art for A REASON! Which is also why Indonesians in general are less good at it, but good at other things, such as shadow puppetry for example. And this is NOT meant as a racist statement that Indonesians can never get good at art, or that white people can't rap. Everyone can get good at anything...BUT, you need to live in an environment that stimulates that growth

where you can develop, and compete against the best. That Eminem could get good at rapping growing up in Detroit does not surprise me, or that Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson could get impulses from abroad AND at home and develop a scene that later influenced the rest of the world.

And this is where racism get's confusing when I give lectures. When I for instance say...if you lived in New York in the 80's with the possibility to listen to KRS one and Public Enemy,

and having radio station playing hip hop 24/7 chances are GREATER that you too could become a good rapper, no one has a problem with that.

But If I say that...if you grew up in Europe with the Dokumenta, the Venice bienale, amazing museums where the best of the best are collected and discussed, with newspaper articles on a daily basis discussing art shows, with the best artists, critics, collectors, galleries and so on aso...chances are that you will become a GREATER artist faster in Europe than in Indonesia, who lacks the necessary infrastructure to feed this necessary development...then I often have a problem and people accuse me of racism.

The chances of there being TRULY great contemporary art outside of Europe and USA is smaller, just as there are slim chances of there being fantastic samba bands outside of Brazil, NOT impossible, but less probable.

This is the problem we now get when we debate the globalization of every art biennial, we need THIS many artist from Sudan, THIS many women, this many gays and this many peadophiles and rapists, it just doesn't automatically create quality.

And in general I think this is the most amusing aspect of the Venice biennial for instance, to see the amount of crap art from Uzbekistan or Iran. Would it be possible to assume that democracy is neccessary to create good art? Probably not...Brazil did amazing stuff during the fascist era, China is also doing amazing art. In the case of China you could also add that they have different taboos than in Europe, which creates a interesting grey zone (from OUR perspective) the by now very famous performance "I'm gonna eat a little fetus with a glass of chardonnay" would not be possible in Europe. So so much for freedom in the democratic world hehehehe...

So here the west and the east are complementing each other in the taboo world.

In China the artists can't talk about Tibet and democracy, and in the west we are not allowed to eat fetuses or use dead AIDS women on ice in our installations, but we STILL get by.

But of course, every year the gap is closing, and the best way to increase quality is to let the Sudani artists compete with the best of Europe, just look at football.

And this is also why it is such a good idea to have artists in residencies, to spread the knowledge.

BUT...also infrastructure is necessary, if there are no contemporary art museums in Sudan, or art magazines, or artschools, or critics, or galleries, or biennials, or or or....HOW are they gonna get good? And if there is no critical mass who is interested locally it doesn't HAVE to be a HUGE dilemma. Look at Detroit techno, but it would help!

But on the other hand, what is the problem if not every country in the world are good at contemporary art, I am sure that they are good at other things. If they have drive and fantasy they have to get rid of their energy somehow.

At the Sao Paulo bienial last year there was this HUGE debate of how underexposed the Nigerian artists were, or the Sudanis or the Angolans and I basically said...well maybe you should get GOOD at art first and THEN we can talk!

Of course I know that this is a radical thing to say, but imagine if we would come with quotas for the next reggae sunsplash festival in Kingston!!! You don't have ANY artists from Mongolia, zero reggae artist from Poland and no gay white dancehall stars...what's up????!!!

We would get laughed out of town!!!

So to the all the Nigerian artists of this world I say, you want to participate in the next major biennial in Europe? Then make sure that you create a good art scene where you live, start art schools, galleries, debates, art magazines, radio programs, academies and so on...

create a critical mass, create a scene...Just like they did with Baile Funk music in Rio de Janeiro

or with Kwaito music in South Africa or Kuduro in Angola or Dancehall in Jamaica or Country music in Nashville and so on aso...

Or to quote KRS one "If you can't rock your own neighbourhood...". And of course this will take time and money, but it is not really about money, as we have seen in the examples mentioned above.

Of course it is also unfair to compare art and music, since we can't upload installations, paintings or sculpures and send them as MP3's as of yet.

So music has an ENORMOUS advantage in how fast ideas can spread over the world,

with a decent internet connection you can be on top of all the developments in music ALL over the world. We are not there yet with art. Which is the reason why London, Berlin and New York will REMAIN art centers for the forseeable future. Whereas in music, Rio de Janeiro, Angola and South Africa can EASILY overtake London or New York in musical invention and probably already has.

Of course, developments in the art world is also related to first world power, racism and economy also. Look how hard women had to fight to enter the art world, but they did it and the developments in Europe have been very succesful on that front...

Ok I am blabbering on...I don't really know what I am saying, but that is why I am saying it...

to find OUT what could be the truth...so please feedback me with ideas and critique.

finally I will give you two links to an old Detroit Techno argument...

1. Underground Resistance- AfroGermanic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvyAxHaem24

celebrating the links between Germany, Detroit and Africa...

And as a piss take off that, another Detroitian (DJ Ass ault), who is basically just ripping up that argument with his hit "Nigga Music", which the first time I heard it... I just thought it was a bad/good joke, but if you understand the heated debate about techno music and race here...it is much more subtle and deep than I first thought.

2. DJ Assault-Nigga Music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hax6NGNCEhw

Jonas Ohlsson reporting from Detroit, thanks to Expodium in Utrecht!

Five days in Chicago

We have just returned from a little side trip to Chicago.
It's about a five hour drive to the west, on a route which took us past the suburbs of Detroit, through rural Michigan, down into Indiana, and across to Illinois. Even an hour outside of Detroit seemed a world away: twisting roads which wound their way between lakes, forest, and small towns with well-kept houses. This dealt with my confusion as to why Michigan has a Republican governor, a state of affairs which seems perverse in Detroit.
Later we switched onto the Interstate, which although much faster was a lot less interesting. I had some romantic ideas about taking a road trip in America, but the reality – here at least – is not so different from the motorway/snelweg/autobahn/autopista in Europe. I guess driving across the desert or through the mountains would be quite spectacular, but neither of those is anywhere near here.

However, the entrance into Chicago is impressive; as the road crosses the Illinois state line and rises up onto the huge steel bridge of the Chicago Skyway (they like to give roads dramatic names here), the skyscrapers of the city centre suddenly appear in the distance, draped in mist. To the east stretches the enormous blue surface of Lake Michigan, an area of water one and a half times the size of the Netherlands. The road then plunges down between the streets, joining with another to become a busy fourteen-lane highway to the downtown area.
It was already obvious from the volume of everything – traffic, buildings, advertising, industry, trains, and people – that this is a very different city to Detroit. It is also much more racially mixed. For the first time since arriving in the US, I have seen significant concentrations of white people.
All these things serve to give it quite a different character. Although Chicago seems on the one hand to be a city on the move, where business (for some at least) is booming, it also lacks the slow, quiet, easy-going feeling of Detroit.

In many ways, Chicago agrees with the expectations I had of America, expectations which have been confounded here in Detroit. In that respect, it is far less interesting.
That being said, I enjoyed our time there. We had a great time staying at the Co-Prosperity Sphere space of Ed and Rachael Marszewski in the district of Bridgeport, met some interesting people, and saw some great art at the Art Institute of Chicago. And we swam in Lake Michigan.
More than anything however, our time there has given a valuable sense of perspective to the experience of being in Detroit. After almost a month it is easy to forget that life here is very far from normal, and also easy to become irritated with some of its idiosyncrasies. I have returned to Detroit with a whole new sense of enthusiasm and appreciation for this weird, weird city. It's good to be back.

Storms and magazines

Last week, I bought three old copies of “Life” magazine from a bookshop in Ferndale: one each from 1948, 1958, and 1968. Twenty years of American history, bracketed.
What struck me the most is the weird version of reality presented in the advertisements, and to a lesser extent in the editorial content, of a perfect, white, middle-class America, where everyone's material needs could easily be met and the scope for further technological improvement of domestic life was unlimited. So long, that was, as gender, class, and race roles were strictly maintained. Objective accounts of history present another picture.
What were people thinking? Did anyone really believe any of this? Or was hypocrisy silently accepted as a necessary requirement for an orderly society?
This got me thinking a lot about how far we have come, or how far we have not come. As the media of the 1940's peddled the stereotype of the perfect wife preparing the perfect casserole, we are now bombarded with images of a hyper-optimised, performance- money- and status-obsessed ideal lifestyle.

Detroit is interesting because it is hard to be fooled by such promises here. It is sometimes described as the West's first post-industrial city, but it's post-a-lot-of-things too. I see a life after corporate capitalism here, where the big-name retail outlets don't bother to set up shop, advertising is conspicuous by its general absence, and a generally slow pace of life has taken hold in response to the practical difficulties involved in getting things done – an example of which will follow.
Detroit is the end. But it is also the start of something else.

On Saturday afternoon, unable to deal with the sticky heat on Farnsworth any longer, we headed over to Belle Isle for a swim in the river. We were not the only ones with this idea.
But almost as soon as we were in the water, everyone was told to get out again. There was a storm coming; it is not a good idea to be in the water when lightning hits.
Very soon the water was empty, and most people decided to head home. And so we were left with the beach to ourselves, and a fantastic view of the storm coming in over the downtown area in the distance. Soon the Renaissance Center (headquarters of General Motors) and the rest of the city was invisible, as if it had just melted into the sky.
Then suddenly, without warning, the storm hit Belle Isle beach. We were struck by a wave of hailstones and sand whipped up by the wind, giving us just a few moments to grab our things and run back to the van before everything was blown away. With everybody inside, we slammed the doors shut and waited for the worst of the storm to die down. We could not see more than a few metres outside.
Leaving Belle Isle was made difficult by the heavy rain, fallen tree branches, and the huge number of people trying to do the same thing. As we finally made it back towards the East Side, our way was continually blocked by fallen trees and flooded roads. About an hour earlier, we had been sitting in bright sunshine.
By the time we reached home, an eerie calm had descended, along with a strange yellow glow in the sky. It felt like the end of the world.
Besides the fallen trees, all the traffic lights in the area had stopped working, along with the internet connection of everyone on the block. It was four days before we were online once again.

In the meantime I have been doing a lot of reading, cycling, and sitting on the porch. Here's to the offline life.

-

Trying to cruise down the street in our Dodge RAM monster, but the storm (see images from Chris) took down so many trees, it was hard to get home. And don't expect the fire dept. to sort things out for you. If you don't have chain saw massacre machine at home your on your own!

The violent nature of the Americans

The violent nature of the Americans.

What we thought would be a quiet night of wining and dining turns ugly after an argument over dessert (cherry pie).

Space out in Holland...It's not an option!

When we came here two weeks ago there was a literal Dutch invasion of Detroit,

Expodium was here, as well as Partisan Publik and Fonds BKVB and

their artists in residence hangers on.

The locals were understandably perplexed and wondered why so many Dutch people were suddenly interested in Detroit.

One of the reasons concerns urban space and freedom (or the lack of it).

In mega densely populated Holland every square meter is planned, booked and spoken for.

The relatively new situation in Detroit of urban shrinkage, frees up so much space,

space that can now be redefined.

I always had a theory about the Dutch

The reason why they legalized prostitution and drugs were not only for economical reasons,

even though the Dutch really likes money and are good at making it

( but not as good as the Swedes...njä njä njä njä njääää=teasing 1).

The prime reason for it was the lack of chaos in their surroundings.

The Dutch had controlled everything that would have been called nature in thee olden days,

even the ocean was cut up into small controllable grachtengordel, polder pieces.

In Sweden I sometimes go into to the enormous forests just to feel small and get a bit scared.

It puts me in place and in awe...

Nature is something uncontrollable, the forest (and nature in general) is a symbol for the unconscious, for "the other", for the unknown...

There is nothing scary, wild, or uncontrollable in the Dutch landscape

(except ganja smoking Italian tourists on bikes)

and THIS fact created the need for some semi legalized wildness in the form of "ladies of the night" and drugs...Until recently I also used this theory to explain the great love for culture that the Dutch used to have. Culture as the unknown...wild, scary, thought and emotion provoking.

How scary and unknown can a musical get??!!

If we take away the mind expanding possibilities in Holland of drugs, hookers and culture I think Holland will have collective panic attacks on a MASSIVE scale in a very near future.

People will realize how small and claustrophobic Holland is.

The new powerful political right is doing everything in its power to make Holland even smaller, to make the Dutch bitterballen walls come closing in...they come closer...and closer...

and closer...and....WHUAAAOAOOA!!!!!

Focus on your breathing Jonas!!!

fhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu....IN....fhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...OUT!

I came to NL as a Swedish western allochtoon in 1996,

and since I come from a richer country than Holland (njä njä njä njä njääää=teasing 2)

I am in the unique allochtoon situation that no one will think I came here for the money or for the social security checks (they're MUCH fatter in Sweden).

So I think I can afford (hehehehe...) to be blunt and speak freely.

I don't have a right to vote in Holland, but I voted FOR Holland 15 years ago when I moved here, with my life, my time, money, ambitions, passions and dreams.

So I DO have a right to be critical.

Holland NOW is not the Holland I came to 15 years ago.

But I will stay and fight.

Thatcher, Reagan, Bush...Rutte?!

KICK OUT THE JAMS MOTHERFUCKERS!!!

(famous MC5 song which made Detroit famous as the pre punk city...

Iggy and Stooges also helped out, hence the name, Detroit-Rock city!)

see here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM6nasmkg7A

Politically I also think it would be a good idea to stop focusing on Wilders.

VVD is hiding behind Wilders and not the other way around and now the new right in Holland can let all their wet little neo con dreams become a reality. Wilders is not the problem, we have populist right wing manipulators in every country, massaging the assholes of all the "Henk & Ingrids" of this world. The weak CDA (the warm "socialist" christians of the right) and the strength of the VVD is the problem.

But also...as artists and culture makers...

let's spend some time for a little bit of self reflection and self criticism too.

After the murders of Pim & Theo, Holland suffered one of their greatest trauma in recent history....how many of us artist did anything to deal with that drama in our art?

How many of us didn't just continue with our own discourses,

when maybe this could have been a good time to get hip to the now.

But we better get hip to THIS game quick though, otherwise the only option left will be...

tune in, turn on, drop out!

But even that won't work....Wilders, Donner, Zijlstra and Verhagen wants to shrink Holland mentally into an even smaller hobbit country...and there are not enough drugs in the world to MIND EXPAND our way out of that dark, tight, scary shithole.

So our only choice is to fight back hard.

Let's GO!!!

C U on the other side....

Techno, from Germany to Detroit & black...the race is on!

When I left Bijlmer we had a goodbye party on the rooftops of Kraaiennest.

Coincidentally a Detroit DJ from Antwerpen played...

there was synchronicity in the techno/house.

Techno in Detroit is not like Dancehall in Kingston or Baile Funk in Rio de Janeiro.

The only ones HERE who cares are big eyed Danish tourists and Swedish/Dutch artists in residence. The techno stars of Detroit...Derrick May, Juan Atkins, Carl Craig, Underground Resistance, Jeff Mills, Kevin Saunderson, Drexciya, Aux 88, Detroit Grand Pubah or Richie Hawtin aka Plastikman from really VERY neighbouring Windsor in Canada, really a stones throw away (even a girls throw) can eat their Coney Island? hotdogs in Detroit in cognito.

For them in seems to be impossible to be prophets (one) in their own hometown.

Bob Marley never seemed to have had any problems skanking in Kingston

and there is this old hip hop saying "if you can't rock your own neighbourhood??!!"

"...we'll rock Berlin, Amsterdam and London instead",

seems to have been the techno godfathers answer.

If you listen to mainstream radio in the USA, it is as racially divided as ever.

There is Rock music for the honkies and Hip Hop for the blacks.

How did this happen?

How could Detroit build up such a strong scene with so little local support from its homebase.

So different from other strong musical scenes where truly new inventions are being developed

on a daily, weekly basis.

For example Baile Funk (Rio de Janeiro), Minimal (Berlin), Dubstep (London), Cumbia

(all of South America except Brazil), Kuduro (Angola), Kwaito (South Africa) and so on aso...

In an interview in local magazine BLAC, Carl Craig explains "There is so much more recognition of the contributions Detroit (Techno) has made outside of Detroit, and defenitely outside of the U.S."...Just as Eminem had to work a bit extra hard (or did he) to be accepted in Hip Hop. Race seems to have played a part in Detroit techno too, but more from blacks who didn't consider Techno or House black enough. This month there is "Black music month" on the local radio stations, "celebrating the musical contributions Blacks have given to America".

"turning poverty and misery into swagger and style". And THIS seems to be the point too, not only race confusion but also class. Many of the stars of the Techno scene came from middle class background and weren't slinging crack in the projects. "Black music month" will NOT celebrate the black musical contributions of Techno (too middleclass and white) nor Chicago House (too genderbending and gay). But Techno DOES connect to a long tradition in black music, that of a liberating Afrofuturism..."space is the place" that goes back to George Clinton and P-Funk, Sun Ra and Afrika Bambataataa.

A longing for something else and new that they ironically also shared with

the German post war experimental Kraut movement of the late 60's and early 70's.

To quote the singer of Amun Duul..."we were tired of Nazism and Germany, but we also didn't want to make Anglo Saxon music (The Beatles or Rolling Stones)...we wanted to go somewhere else...so, space seemed to be an option". These ideas brought us the experimental genious of Faust, Can, Amon Duul, Neu, La Dusseldorf AND...Kraftwerk, which later got picked up by Afrika Bambaataa. The legendary DJ in Detroit who infused the local scene with all these new experimental ideas from Germany and Europe and mixed it up with Prince and P-funk , was called "The Electrifying Mojo (Charles Johnson). He had a radio show on a radio station geared towards the African-American market, and here he managed to experiment and break down gengre, racial, class and gender barriers. Not a bad achievement for a little DJ.

So the circle is again round...from Germany to Detroit and black.

This text is dedicated to The Electrifying Mojo and all other barrier breakers!