FEMINAE NOX X MUTEK 2024 | G L O W Z I, Fabienne Leys, OmniDirectional Groove & Melissa Vincent

FEMINAE NOX is celebrating its 2nd anniversary in championing equity and empowerment for racialized women & gender diverse individuals in live music and nightlife, off and on stage. In this special episode we will be introducing you to FEMINAE NOX, its mandate, and revisiting its 2024 participation at MUTEK’s 25th anniversary as guest programmers and collaborators for the Festival and Forum.

This episode revisits FEMINAE NOX’s impact at MUTEK 2024: featuring a recording of their panel “Electronic Music is Black Music: Reclaiming and Tracing Electronic Music’s Roots, Present, and Future" reframing contemporary electronic music as originated by Black pioneers and address the ongoing erasure from global music narratives. The panel features artist manager and NYC managing director at ATC Management (Kelela, Hayley Kiyoko, Danielle Ponder) Fabienne Leys, archivist and interdisciplinary artist G L O W Z I, artist and community program facilitator OmniDirectional Groove and music journalist and researcher Melissa Vincent. The segment concludes with a live set by G L O W Z I at MUTEK Festival, who translates their theoretical thoughts from the panel and brings it into their live music performance.

As FEMINAE NOX embarks on its 3rd year, its mission remains clear: To confront industry disparities—where only 1.7% of Black women are live music executives —and to continue creating equitable opportunities for racialized women to have sustainable careers on and off stage in live music.

FEMINAE NOX @ MUTEK 2024 “Electronic Music is Black Music — Reclaiming and Tracing Electronic Music’s Roots, Present, and Future”

In electronic music, there is a continuous Eurocentric-backed campaign in whitewashing and scrubbing away of Black histories concerning the origins of electronic music. And to be clear, when we refer to electronic music we are referring to the myriad of contemporary forms of electronic music as we know it today like house, techno, jungle, drum & bass, dancehall, amapiano, etc. Electronic music much like all forms of contemporary music has been and continues to remain to be the invention of and pioneered by Afro & Afro-descendent artists. For example, in the underground clubs of Detroit and Chicago, Black Americans, particularly queer Black folks, created genres like techno and house as a response to systemic racism, economic hardship, and societal marginalization as a powerful act of cultural expression, resistance, and survival.

African-American artists who pioneered electronic music and its sub-genres include names like Kelli “K-Hand” Hand, Stacey “Hotwaxx” Hale, DJ Minx who runs Women on Wax, Crystal Waters, Robin S, CeCe Peniston, Janet Jackson, Frankie Knuckles, Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May — affectionately known as The Belleville Three who are the godfathers of techno—, Robert Hood, RP Boo, the Underground Resistance, Jeff Mills, and the list goes on of the countless other Afro & Afro descendants individuals responsible for electronic music’s explosive evolution into a global phenomenon. These electronic genres are sounds that were born in spite of white supremacy and became a form of defiance, offering Black people a space to exist, to be heard, and thrive.

So when entities like UNESCO who granted Berlin’s bid to be recognized for techno, as part of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, it is an active action in knowingly validating misinformation, rewriting false narratives and erasing Black histories. This is a global worldwide consortium that is essentially giving its blessing and authentication to purposely erase the history of techno — being an invention pioneered by Black Americans in Detroit — through a single sweeping action. Similarly, Frankfurt’s Museum of Modern Electronic Music and its director, Alex Azary, has made absolutely wild claims that there had been no space or museum for electronic music, techno, house, or club culture that had existed prior to MOMEM. And meanwhile since 2002, Mike (Mad) Banks and John Collins, of the Underground Resistance — a Detroit-based music label founded by Banks & Jeff Mills — created and continue to manage a museum space called Exhibit 3000, located in Detroit, in order to preserve the story of techno’s Detroit origins so it would not be lost or erased as the genre grew in global popularity, especially in Europe.

MOMEM’s & UNESCO’s actions breed gross neglect and active whitewashing that is preserved through each generation allowing for the dilution of electronic music’s history furthering marginalization of Black communities, stripping their revolutionary historical contributions to electronic music. All done in an effort for white patriarchal gatekeepers to culturally appropriate and financially dominate the electronic music industry — solidify themselves as the authoritative voices. Contemporary electronic music genres — which emerged from the radical roots in Afro and Afro descendant communities as a need to escape white oppression and intergenerational struggles — was birthed and pioneered into global phenomenon from Black folks.

And it is from this history and context, that during MUTEK’s 25th anniversary, FEMINAE NOX together a panel entitled “Electronic Music is Black Music — the Reclaiming and Tracing of Electronic Music’s Roots, Present, and Future” to reexamine and put back into the forefront these histories across time, in hopes of combat this erasure of Black histories happening at electronic music festivals, conferences, shows, cultural institutions, businesses, artistic practices, etc. This one-hour panel features industry leaders like artist manager Fabienne Leys and artists G L O W Z I and OmniDirectional Groove, moderated by Melissa Vincent to examine and reframes electronic music as Black music, distinctive from its cultural assimilation within predominantly white, European music contexts and discourse, re-contextualizing and emphasizing accurate narratives of electronic music from a Black lens

From the birth of house and techno to the global rise of afro-futurism, this discussion uncovers the diverse array of influences, pioneers, and challenges that continue to shape the ever-changing landscape of electronic music as its reclaims its rightful place as Black music and restores the lost histories of Black women and gender nonconforming individuals’ contributions to electronic music.

From its origins in the innovative sounds of African-American artists who pioneered electronic music and its sub-genres — Kelli “K-Hand” Hand, Stacey “Hotwaxx” Hale, DJ Minx (Women on Wax), Crystal Waters, Robin S, CeCe Peniston, Janet Jackson, Frankie Knockles, Frank Three Hood, Three Hood Belleville, Robert Threeville Boo, Underground Resistance, and Jeff Mills, amongst many others — to contemporary electronic music’s explosive evolution into a global phenomenon.

This transformative conversation explores the dynamic intersection of electronic music, Black culture and counterculture, tracing its rich history, examining its vibrant contemporary and current landscape, and envisioning its evolving role in shaping the future trajectories of contemporary electronic music. The featured musicians, scholars, industry executives and cultural critics converge to delve into the rich tapestry of electronic music, highlighting its often-overlooked roots in Black culture.

After the discussion, you will hear a live set recorded from G L O W Z I’s performance at MUTEK. And similarly to the audiences who came to the panel, you will have a chance to experience G L O W Z I’s academic rhetoric from the panel is translated from theory into a live music performance, rooted in the multitudinous forms of contemporary electronic music as originated by Afro & Afro-descended pioneers through space & time.