Presentation and talk: Assembling a Black Counter Culture, with DeForrest Brown Jr. and NIKS

Assembling a Black Counter Culture is a comprehensive account of techno as a unique form of Black musical and cultural production, with a focus on the history of Black experiences in industrialised labour systems. Reaching from the transatlantic slave trade to Emancipation, the Industrial Revolution, and the Great Migration from the rural South to the industrialized North, DeForrest Brown, Jr. details an extended history of techno—which originated in 1980s Detroit—rooted in the transformation of urban centers and the new forms of industrial capitalism that gave rise to the African American working class. Black Artist Database founder NIKS joins Brown in conversation around the themes of his book and talk, and explores strategies for understanding and building a more equitable global dance music culture.