In Detroit, everyone's a DJ
One Movement veteran told me Detroit has the most DJs per capita in America.
There’s no better time to experience exactly what makes Detroit so special to residents and visitors than Memorial Day weekend.
It’s not just Movement festival, but the block parties and afters events happening in every corner of the city that turn it into a 72-hour straight party.
“Detroit probably has the most DJs per capita of any place in America,” Hadi Shehadeh, a Grosse Pointe resident told me at the festival Saturday.
He’s a commercial graphic designer by day, and a DJ at night. Shehadeh has been playing music at Detroit venues like The Eagle, TV Lounge and Marble Bar for over a decade.
I met him while waiting to get a massage from an acclaimed masseuse who sets up shop each year inside a tent in the VIP area Saturday. The masseuse (who asked not to be named in this story) danced while stretching the arms of Shehadeh’s girlfriend as we considered why Detroit is such a hotspot for fans of live music.
He says the weekend is a celebration of local legends like Carl Craig, Derrick May and Juan Atkins who turned Detroit into techno city. Detroit talent has been central to the genre since its early beginnings at the Music Institute (1315 Broadway St.) between Greektown and Campus Martius in the late 80s, to the Detroit Electronic Music Festival in the 2000s, and across stages around the world in the years since.
Today, up and coming artists are shaping the city’s nightlife fabric.
Detroit artist Alanna Greenlee, 26, under the alias AK, was one of the up and coming local acts who took the Movement stage on Memorial Day.
AK is the co-founder of Blueprint. The label and party series is led by four Black women dedicated to uplifting the city’s dance music history and future. The group cut the cover charge in half at their Friday afters event on the west side for those who showed Detroit IDs.
The Movement crowd grew larger as AK’s fast-paced set went on, mixing jungle and footwork with Sexyy Red. Two women in their 40s who said they drive to the festival each year from Indiana, asked me to share AK’s Instagram as they danced and cheered while she blended tracks. They were impressed.
Her Instagram handle is “@AKisthebestDJever” for a reason, someone explained in an Instagram story she reposted.
AK’s performance preceded a set from Zack Fox, a comedian turned DJ, who joined her on stage at the end of her set.
Hi-Tech, Detroit’s raunchy ghetto-tech trio, flooded the Movement stage with rappers, dancers and longtime friends Monday afternoon. The group, compromised of 47 Chops, King Milo and Milf Melly, performed cuts from their critically acclaimed debut, Detwat (2023), plus their latest album, HONEYPAQQ Vol. 1, which hit streaming platforms over the holiday weekend.
Joining Hi-Tech was Bruiser Brigade veteran Zelooperz, former Team Eastside member G.T., a duo of dancers comprised of a personal trainer and twerk instructor.
Their on, off and around the stage behavior — which included jumping into the crowd to waterfall Hennessy into whoever’s mouth was open — frazzled security staff who appeared unprepared for Hi-Tech’s interactive stage presence. At one point, the security attendant tasked with keeping fans away from the artists told me, “I don’t get paid enough for this shit.”
As WDET’s Ryan Patrick Hooper put it in a post to Instagram, their performance “was the most punk rock shit” I’ve seen in a while.
That was until the next day, when punk-metal band Trash Talk thrashed through the crowd at Southwest Detroit’s El Club.
Lead singer Lee Spielman, wearing Guess jeans and Jordan 1s, used the crowd to climb on venue’s walls and lighting fixtures.
But before phones flung out of pockets and glasses flew off of faces, Brooklyn artist Anysia Kym held the crowd’s attention with an airy live performance of tracks from her latest, Clandestine, a collaborative EP with Loraine James.
Kym was part of a bill brought together by Ziggy Waters, who performed Sunday, and hosted the afterparty at Paramita Sound.
The El-Club lineup included Kym, MIKE, Navy Blue, Yanna, Don Juan, The Alchemist and Boldy James. Just down the block from where legends got their start decades ago at Music Institute, Paramita is sort of a re-imagined, 21st century version with a wine bar. Each Wednesday the record store hosts open decks, where new DJs are able to grow their chops and interact with established artists.
Paramita’s owner, Drey Douthard, told me the holiday weekend brought more patrons to his bar than he’d ever seen.
Fans from El Club Sunday night after a lively Alchemist and Boldy James performance drove 10 minute from Vernor to Broadway Street to hear Kym and Brooklyn rapper MIKE, under his DJ alias, dj blackpower, play music.
Playing at Paramita on Monday was Fox, who DJ’d downtown before his set at Big Pink, which brought more than a thousand people to the east side venue. After Fox’s set, Douthard shooed away unfamiliar guests spilling far out into the sidewalk as word spread police were threatening to issue fines.
I’ve been to Paramita countless times — I’ve never seen more people there at once.
How the party ended Monday made me wonder about the mid-30’s-year-old man who frequently made noise complaints when he used to live above Paramita, developer George Roberts.
About two years ago from his apartment above, Roberts notified police several separate times that the bar was breaking the city’s noise ordinance before eventually moving out.
Roberts attempted to negotiate with Douthard before complaining to the city, text messages between them revealed. After the Paramita owner stopped responding to the developer’s messages, Roberts asked me over the phone to see the dilemma from his side: he has a wife and newborn child who were trying to get sleep, he said.
Roberts was for a brief time my landlord after he and a group of investors purchased a big chunk of Cass Corridor after Joel Landy died. He stopped responding to my questions after I continued documenting his changes to the beloved neighborhood against the wishes of the property management company desperate to sell barely renovated, high-priced units to suburban transplants.
As Shehadeh explained a few days earlier, the authenticity felt by outsiders when attending a late-night Detroit function comes from the spirit of the people putting them together. All of the afterparties I visited over the weekend were owned and operated by the people attending them.
“Corporate hasn’t taken over yet,” Shehadeh said.
Roberts once told me that he loved Douthard and Paramita, and that the proximity to the business was one of the major draws of renting the loft above it from Bedrock. But that the inability to control the noise made him and his wife “rethink whether living downtown is right for us.”
DJing is growing, not only as an art form appreciated by those far outside the culture, but as a hobby among people with well-paying day jobs — and local political candidates.
City Council president and mayoral candidate Mary Sheffield declined to agree when asked by a supporter last week at a campaign event whether she’s also a DJ. The event, hosted by Michael Reyes of We Are Culture Creators, focused on how city government could better support the city’s nightlife industry.
The question stemmed from her appearance behind the decks earlier this April, and her inclusion on a flier as a DJ this past weekend. (Not sure whether that ended up happening).
Over the weekend, I did uncover Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is also stepping his toes into the world disc jockeying. The event set for June 13 at The Social Brews is a fundraiser for his gubernatorial campaign, featuring DJ Smiley, who is headlining.
“We’re excited to welcome special guest Mike Duggan, who’ll be in the building to join the fun — and maybe even show off a few DJ skills of his own!” Shannon Jackson said in a post to Instagram.
You can attend that event for $50, which includes two drinks and light snacks, according to the flyer.
I hadn't heard of Paramita before this weekend and now it's for sure on the list