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The cover art for Gary Bredow's documentary High Tech Soul: The Creation of Techno Music features an image of the Detroit Renaissance Center. Growing up in Windsor, Ontario, on the Canadian side of the Detroit River, I was unaware of the powerful symbolism of Detroit's most visible skyscraper. As its name suggests, this 1970s urban renewal project was a beacon of hope intended to revitalize the city's economy. By the mid-1980s, the image of the Center imprinted itself on the hearts and minds of the black youth who first produced Detroit techno. In the years to follow, it would dominate Detroit techno paraphernalia of all sorts as the music instilled a new sense of pride in locals and offered fans across the globe a reason to love Detroit.
The film's opening credits introduce the sounds of Detroit techno: resonating 4/4 bass lines, classic synthesizer sounds, repetitive beats and melodies, which in combination have created a distinct dance-music genre. Faintly superimposed on the screen is video of people dancing in almost total darkness (intended, perhaps, to alert the viewer that this is a film about underground electronic dance music that emerged from a city typically below many people's radar). The introduction includes video clips from interviews with the genre's key players about their music and the cultural context that created the conditions for the birth of Detroit techno. To this day, Detroit is best known musically for the mainstream success of Motown, a style of soul music that emerged out of the political, economic, and social unrest that African American communities in Detroit were experiencing in the 1960s. Thus, it is not surprising that in the opening credits Derrick May, one of the founders of Detroit techno, harks...