The Reader has spilled plenty of ink over the years in celebration of Robert Hood, who cofounded Detroit techno collective Underground Resistance in 1989. Alongside fellow founders Jeff Mills and “Mad” Mike Banks (who’s also played bass in Parliament), Hood helped create a counterculture by and for Black people that expanded listeners’ political imaginations through minimal techno beats.
Inspired by the house and industrial communities in Chicago, Underground Resistance envisioned a mutually liberatory scene. They wanted it to reject the hedonism and monetization associated with techno, empower lower-income Black communities (especially Black men) to uplift themselves and change their circumstances, and thrive because of its participants’ creativity and strength of relationships—not corporate sponsorship or fame seeking. Since Hood’s time in UR, his career has taken a series of twists and turns. He’s recorded under a number of aliases, including H&M and Monobox; he’s founded minimal techno label M-Plant; and as a devout born-again Christian, he’s become an ordained minister. In 2014 he invited his teenage daughter Lyric to make gospel-infused electronica as Floorplan, a moniker he’s recorded under since 1996. Through the decades, he’s never wavered when it comes to the ideas about peace, love, and understanding that brought him to music.
Hood’s Smart Bar appearance is cosponsored by the Museum of Contemporary Art, and at 2 PM the same day he’ll speak at the MCA on a panel alongside DeForrest Brown Jr. and Arthur Jafa. Jafa is an artist primarily working in moving images who aspires to replicate “the power, beauty, and alienation of Black music” through film. His retrospective, which features a piece with musical accompaniment from Hood, is on display at the museum through March. Brown is the author of 2022’s Assembling a Black Counterculture, one of the most comprehensive histories of techno that situates the music not only in the sociopolitical context of the Motor City’s decline but also in a rich lineage of Black cultural responses to racial capitalism. The three artists will certainly provide a thought-provoking conversation about cultural resistance, which is sure to resonate into the night and make Smart Bar’s dance floor feel more alive.
Robert Hood Shaun J. Wright and Blackclub open. Sat 12/7, 10 PM, Smart Bar, 3730 N. Clark, $25, $20 in advance, $20 students, 21+
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Upcoming shows to have on your radar.
Sat 12/7 at Wintrust Arena
12/8 at the Old Town School of Folk Music
Tue 12/10 at Empty Bottle
Thu 12/5 at DuSable Black History Museum
