Episode 55

“Music and politics always go hand in hand.”

In this episode of the Telekom Electronic Beats Podcast Editor-in-Chief Whitney Wei talks to DJ, composer, producer and Assistant Professor King Britt from Philadelphia. The two started a conversation on Instagram, after the release of Whitneys article Electronic Music Is Black Protest Music. Electronic Beats team takes an educational stance on the Black Lives Matter movement, with the team educating themselves and others with links to pertinent Black literature and anti-racism resources. King Britt, who has an esteemed, professional background in music, facilitates these conversations daily in an academic setting. In the interview, King Britt explains the contributions of Black people on club culture and electronic music. Starting with the explanation of Afrofuturism, a term coined by Mark Dery in 1993 to explain Black liberation within a mythic, utopian prophecy, they consider this theme throughout the emergence of Chicago house, Detroit techno, Drum and Bass, and the LA beat scene, which were created as reactions by socio-political events for underrepresented communities. Britt emphasises the symbiotic exchange between Berlin and Detroit techno, but also traces the eventual whitewashing of the genre over time. Within, he describes his route to becoming an assistant professor and points out how he has been able to react in real time on the Black Lives Matter movement through education.