The thing about solving problems is that you do what you can do. Projects like House of Altr do what they can: showcase and promote black artists.
Techno - and the wider world of dance music - originates in the music of Black americans. What black audiences listen to is a separate matter. They may be more likely to connect with techno if they see people that look like them up on stage. Labels and promoters CAN address the problem black erasure in dance music. It's more an issue in Europe than the US, since in the US dance music is less of a commercial phenomenon, but even here, white artists crowd out Black music. You are right that when DEMF was free, it re-introduced techno to Black Detroiters. I think Paxahau is doing a decent job, but the fact that the festival is now an expensive ticket excludes a large audience who are economically distressed. With the $200+ ticket price for the weekend, it's absurd to think that the festival is even for the Black citizens of Detroit any more. And not to put too fine a point on it, the subscribers to this list are overwhelming middle class white people. At this point this is not a place to go to get a Black perspective on anything. Is this list still worthwhile and relevant? On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 10:00 AM David A. Powers <cybo...@gmail.com> wrote: > Still, the idea that you can fix the problem of diversity on the > producer/performer side, without increasing the diversity of the audience > itself, seems super sketchy to me. >
