Detroit Mixtapes

DJ mixes and mixtapes from the city that invented techno - digitized and restored from original cassette tape and CD recordings.

The story of Detroit techno is inseparable from the story of the city itself. Founders Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson built a new sound rooted in the music of Black Detroit - spreading it through clubs, underground parties, and local TV shows like The New Dance Show before it grew into an international phenomenon. The Music Institute, a Black-owned dance club that ran from 1988 to 1990, was the first true home of the sound, with Derrick May, Chez Damier, and Alton Miller among its resident DJs. In 1990, Mad Mike Banks, Rob Hood, and Jeff Mills formed Underground Resistance - creating music about resistance and revolution that became one of the most uncompromising and influential labels in electronic music history. A second wave followed, with Carl Craig, Octave One, and UR's expanding collective pushing Detroit's sound into new and increasingly sophisticated territory through the 1990s. Meanwhile, across the Detroit River, Richie Hawtin and John Acquaviva formed the Plus 8 record label - named after the highest speed of playback on a turntable - and threw some of the most historically significant underground parties the region had ever seen.

These tapes document the city that built the foundation the entire global techno scene stands on. Essential listening, full stop.