This is a presentation I prepared for the 2025 Wayne County Teaching Diverse Histories Summit.
I believe that Black American Music should be the center of American music education, and Detroit has given major contributions to this lineage beyond the most well known and well told stories (i.e. Motown). This presentation looks at the rhythmic element known as the backbeat and uses it as a framework to analyze Detroit’s contributions to three genres of music: jazz, techno, and hip-hop (specifically J Dilla).
Click here for the slide show presentation (Google Slide)
Click here for a hard copy of the full presentation (.pdf)
Click here for a hard copy of the condensed presentation (.pdf)
Playlists
Below are a couple of hour long music playlists that feature songs from the city of Detroit. I chose to focus only on BIPOC musicians who had a strong connection to the city (ex: born in Detroit, recorded in Detroit, spent formative years in Detroit, etc).
Click here for a list of the songs/artists in these two playlists