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ONLY 2 BLACK DJs ON THEDJLIST.COM'S TOP 100 - WTF?
There’s been a lot of talk recently on the DJ scene about last months top 100 DJ list released by TheDJlist.com and the fact that only 2 black DJs were mentioned.
This was brought to the light by who you could call one of the founding fathers of Detroit techno, Juan Atkins, when he posted his thoughts on his Facebook page.
Atkins (member of the Bellville Three) stated in his post “The only 2 black DJ's on the list are #99 and #100. WTF, are they trying to be funny?” then went on to say “That's a slap in the face of the entire black race basically.”
It doesn’t take a genius to realize he’s got a point. One of the top sites for ranking international DJs only managed to find 2 black DJs in the whole world that had the talent to make it into their top 100 list?
When we look at the origins of most of the music we are all now accustomed to hearing, most of them have origins in Africa and traditional African music.
Now music is for everyone but when we look at the origins and the progressions within music, people of African heritage are hugely responsible and to only state that in the whole world only 2 black DJs are worthy to make the top 100 list raises the question: are black people being elbowed out of something they helped build and in essence create?
What makes this list more questionable is the fact that after Atkins commented on Facebook, the only 2 black DJs in the list, Carl Cox and Carnage, magically went from #99 and #100 to #46 and #68 - WTF!
Resident Advisor released their top 100 DJ list last December and they at least had 6 out of 100 with Detroit DJ Seth Troxler making the top 10 at #7. Even though Resident advisor had 4 more black DJs 6/100? That’s still a little shady if you ask me. DJs like Carl Craig were mentioned in the list as being one of the "biggest names in American techno" but didn’t make the list.
DJ Pierre (member of PHUTURE), recognized as being one of the creators of acid house, wrote an article last year on thump about the racism in Chicago. He stated “Chicago has historically been (and still is) one of the most racially-segregated cities in the U.S.A’’ and went on to talk about the woes of growing up in such a deeply racist area and how the racism still continues today. Could this be part of the reason black DJs are also being overlooked in an industry they helped create?
DJ Pierre
David Guetta made the #1 spot (hmmm…) in the TheDJlist’s top 100, and fair enough he’s a world renowned DJ, but surely only placing 2 black DJs out of 100 as the best DJs in the world is a big problem - it's 2016!
Atkins has lost sleep over this and tbh if I created a whole genre of music and felt the people putting in the effort were not being recognized, I’d be pretty pissed off too mate.
