Kevin Saunderson (born in Brooklyn, New York on May 9, 1964) is an American electronic music producer. At the age of nine he moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he attended Belleville High School and befriended two students, Derrick May and Juan Atkins. Saunderson, with Atkins and May, (often called the "Belleville Three"), is considered to be one of the originators of techno, specifically Detroit techno.
Born Daniel Sewell on March 16, 1981, Danny Brown is a hip hop artist from the Dexter-Linwood area of Detroit, Michigan. Danny is an unconventional hip hop artist employing multiple flows and cadences thus the moniker of “The Hybrid”. His style varies from low pitched gravelly tones to a manic, high pitched, squawk. His lyrics, often dealing with the truth of living in Detroit; poverty, drug abuse, desperate circumstances, etc and his own experiences in the motor city...
Moodymann is the moniker under which Kenny Dixon Jr produces and DJs. He is a techno/house musician based in Detroit. He has created a thoroughly hybrid form of techno/house dance music via his innovative use of reworked riffs, samples and grooves taken from that city's historically influential jazz, soul, funk and disco scene. Some call it cut-up Detroit house. He offers a friendly wink backwards at the innovative early 1990s rave scene musicians through his extensive use of old movie sound track samples, mainly culled from the old blaxploitation and b-movie genres.
Trying to describe Redshape's sound is kind of a hard task, sitting somewhere between everything in dance music and his very own imagination. It's not minimal, not maximal and always historical respecting the vibe of Detroit. Repetition is something Redshape works hard to prevent, so his live shows - which brought him to nearly every known European club - morph and develop everytime to never play the same show a second time.
Waajeed (b. Robert O'Bryant) is a Detroit-born music producer, and one half of the hip hop and R&B group Platinum Pied Pipers. He formed the Bling47 record label & coinciding website/online store, Bling47.com [1] in 2002 and released an instrumental album called B.P.M.. Bling47 has also released projects by J Dilla and the vocalist Tiombe Lockhart. Before producing records, Waajeed was a DJ in and around the Detroit music circuit. As a producer Waajeed began comparatively late (2000), but before long had landed a handful of tracks on Slum Village's Trinity (Past, Present and Future) album.
In the course of the eighties Jeff Mills was an influential radio DJ on WJLB under the pseudonym The Wizard. Mills' sets were a highlight of the nightly show from "The Electrifying Mojo," Charles Johnson. Complimenting Mojo's eclectic playlists, Mills would spin obscure detroit techno, hiphop, electro, freestyle, miami bass, chicago house and classic new wave tracks. In going on to create his own music Mills is credited with laying the foundations for legendary detroit techno collective, Underground Resistance, alongside 'Mad' Mike Banks, a former Parliament bass player.
Kirk Degiorgio was born in Stepney, East London in the late 60's. Raised in a family who loved a wide range of music - and one which could claim a hugely famous pop-star cousin in Marc Bolan of T-Rex - Kirk got early exposure to music from artists such as Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Sly Stone, Roxy Music, etc. His mother Janet Feld was a young 'mod' who devoutly followed The Kinks, The Who, etc around the venues of London.
Derrick May, also known as Mayday and Rhythim Is Rhythim, is an electronic musician from Belleville, Michigan U.S.A. He was born an only child in Detroit in 1963 and began to explore electronic music early in his life. Along with his Belleville, Michigan high school friends Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson, commonly known as the Belleville Three, May is credited with developing the futuristic variation on house music that would be dubbed "techno" by Atkins.
Underground Resistance is the most militantly political outcropping of modern urban American techno. Combining a grubby, four-track aesthetic, an almost strictly DIY business philosophy, and an oppositional, militaristic ethos similar to Public Enemy without the drama (or the familiarity; the members refuse to be photographed without bandanas obscuring their identities), UR have redirected their portion of the Detroit techno legacy to social activist ends, trading mainstream popularity and financial success for independence and self-determination.