Detroit Techno und die Frage nach der Hautfarbe

Abstract

Techno was created in the 1980s by African-American teenagers in Detroit. This thesis is about the role the African-American background of the musicians from Detroit plays in the music and in the way Detroit Techno is perceived. Since Detroit Techno was influenced by African-American music (funk, soul, disco, house, jazz) and European music (new wave, electro-pop, italo-disco, ebm, Kraftwerk) it is a very hybrid form of music that can't easily be classified as "black" or "white" music. But Detroit Techno is often perceived from an European point of view as "black" techno and therefore connected to certain stereotypes, for example as very authentic, "soulful" and "deep". Because of its origin the music holds an exceptional position in the predominantly white European techno scene. On the other hand techno isn't a popular kind of music in the US and mostly ignored by the African-American mainstream. This is besides other reasons because techno in general is perceived as European music, and Detroit Techno is seen as too inauthentic for a wider African- American audience.