Imag­ine Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hüt­ter in his robot voice, say­ing, as he once said to his friend Boris Ven­zen, “Our music is good if blacks and whites can dance to it at the same time.” This state­ment is the essence of Kraftwerk. Despite their ear­ly 70s avant-garde phase and their famous­ly satir­ic Teu­ton­ic look, the robot­ic Ger­man tech­no pio­neers set­tled ear­ly on their “prac­tice of fus­ing Euro­pean elec­tron­ic music with black Amer­i­can rhythms, forg­ing an aes­thet­ic that reached crit­i­cal mass with the release of Trans Europe Express.”

So writes John Mor­ri­son at The Wire, in an essay that explores this fusion in some depth. Mor­ri­son also quotes for­mer Kraftwerk per­cus­sion­ist Karl Bar­tos on the band’s debt to black music: “We were all fans of Amer­i­can music: soul, the Tamla/Motown thing, and of course, James Brown. We always tried to make an Amer­i­can rhythm feel, with a Euro­pean approach to har­mo­ny and melody.” The exper­i­men­tal method emerges even in their ear­li­est work, in which they begin work­ing with the “’Bo Did­dley’ beat… that dom­i­nat­ed rock ‘n’ roll in the 50s and ear­ly 60s,” Mor­ri­son notes.

Black DJs in the states picked up on what the Ger­mans were doing, and start­ed play­ing Kraftwerk—along with Gary Numan, Yel­lo Mag­ic Orches­tra, and New Order—in the dis­cos. Mean­while, Kraftwerk start­ed incor­po­rat­ing ear­ly Amer­i­can house music with their 1981 album Com­put­er World. The response to Kraftwerk in black clubs was huge, and they became even more famous after Afri­ka Bam­baataa sam­pled “Trans Europe Express” in his 1981 track, “Plan­et Rock,” a song that had a seis­mic impact on elec­tron­ic dance music around the world.

Kraftwerk’s most sin­gu­lar impact in the U.S. hap­pened in the city of Detroit. As Mor­ri­son writes:

[Kraftwerk]’s influ­ence took a par­tic­u­lar­ly strong hold in Detroit with Urban radio DJs Like Elec­tri­fy­ing Mojo intro­duc­ing the Euro­pean elec­tron­ic sound to the gen­er­a­tion of black youth that went on to cre­ate tech­no. In recent years, sev­er­al clips have been uploaded of The Scene (and its spin-off The New Dance Show), a Soul Train-style dance show that aired from 1975–87 on Detroit’s WGPR TV 62. In these videos, black youth from Detroit can be seen danc­ing to Kraftwerk and a vari­ety of pro­gres­sive elec­tron­ic dance music, giv­ing us a glimpse into Detroit’s scene at the time.

If you ever need­ed to know how to dance to Kraftwerk, writes Dan­ger­ous Minds of the exu­ber­ant Soul Train-like dance line above, “this is how it’s done”—or at least, how it was done in Detroit in the late 80s on The New Dance Show. From the ear­ly 80s on, Mor­ri­son writes, “Kraftwerk became increas­ing­ly aware of the black music scene,” and leg­endary Detroit tech­no DJs like Juan Atkins, Der­rick May, and Kevin Saun­der­son became increas­ing­ly aware of Kraftwerk, a sit­u­a­tion cul­tur­al schol­ar Paul Gilroy might fold into his con­cept of “the Black Atlantic,” but which could also be called some­thing like The Trans Düs­sel­dorf-Detroit Afro­fu­tur­ist Tech­no Express.

“All of the city latched on to” Kraftwerk’s sound, says May in a 2010 inter­view above. Atkins put it this way in a 2012 trib­ute to Kraftwerk pub­lished on Elec­tron­ic Beats:

[T]he first time I heard ‘Robots’ I just froze. My jaw dropped. It just sound­ed so new and fresh. I mean, I had already been doing elec­tron­ic music at the time, but the results weren’t so pristine—the sound of com­put­ers talk­ing to each oth­er. This sound­ed like the future, and it was fas­ci­nat­ing, because I had just start­ed learn­ing about sequencers and drum pro­grams. In my mind, Kraftwerk were, like, con­sul­tants to Roland and Korg and stuff because they had these sounds before any of the machines even appeared on the mar­ket.

I mean, there were oth­er funky elec­tron­ic bands around—Tan­ger­ine Dream and Gary Numan and all that—but none were as funky as Kraftwerk­. I mean, you could actu­al­ly play the stuff on black radio, and that wasn’t a small feat. You could go to an all black club in Detroit and when they put on ‘Pock­et Cal­cu­la­tor’, every­body just went total­ly crazy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Flo­ri­an Schnei­der (RIP) in Clas­sic Ear­ly Kraftwerk Per­for­mances

The Case for Why Kraftwerk May Be the Most Influ­en­tial Band Since the Bea­t­les

Kraftwerk’s “The Robots” Per­formed by Ger­man First Graders in Adorable Card­board Robot Out­fits

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

A quick heads up. The Prince Estate has released Prince and the Rev­o­lu­tion: Live, a his­toric con­cert cap­tured at the Car­ri­er Dome in Syra­cuse, NY on March 30, 1985. Stream­ing to sup­port the COVID-19 Sol­i­dar­i­ty Response Fund for the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion, the video revis­its the Pur­ple Rain tour, when Prince was at the height of his pow­ers. You can find the 20-song setlist right below. Enjoy the free fundrais­ing stream while it lasts.

1. Let’s Go Crazy

2. Deliri­ous

3. 1999

4. Lit­tle Red Corvette

5. Take Me With U

6. Yan­kee Doo­dle Dandy

7. Do Me Baby

8. Irre­sistible Bitch

9. Pos­sessed

10. How Come You Don’t Call Me Any­more

11. Let’s Pre­tend We’re Mar­ried

12. Inter­na­tion­al Lover

13. God

14. Com­put­er Blue

15. Dar­ling Nik­ki

16. The Beau­ti­ful Ones

17. When Dove’s Cry

18. I Would Die 4 U

19. Baby I’m A Star

20. Pur­ple Rain

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A New Col­lec­tion of Offi­cial, Autho­rized Prince GIFs!

Hear Prince’s Per­son­al Playlist of Par­ty Music: 22 Tracks That Will Bring Any Par­ty to Life

Read Prince’s First Inter­view, Print­ed in His High School News­pa­per (1976)

The Prince Online Muse­um Archives 16 of Prince’s Offi­cial Web Sites, Span­ning 20 Years

In 2016, King Crim­son per­formed “Heroes” at the Admi­ralspalast in Berlin, just after David Bowie’s death, and near­ly forty years after the song was writ­ten and record­ed next to the Berlin Wall. It was “a cel­e­bra­tion, a remem­branc­ing and an homage,” gen­tle­man gui­tarist Robert Fripp wrote in a state­ment. The fol­low­ing year, they released the live ver­sion on an EP called Heroes, in hon­or of the clas­sic Bowie album’s 40th anniver­sary.

King Crim­son sounds absolute­ly amaz­ing in the con­cert record­ing. Yet it’s Fripp’s keen­ing gui­tar line—part vio­lin, part theremin—that most calls out to us, a gor­geous­ly heav­en­ly wail. Like many Bowie songs, the writ­ing and record­ing of “Heroes” pro­duced many a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry. Fripp’s con­tri­bu­tion, as a leg­endary char­ac­ter and prog-rock genius, is no excep­tion.

Frip­p’s angel­ic tone on “Heroes,” as Tony Vis­con­ti tells it above (at 2:15), came about most­ly by hap­py acci­dent. Vis­con­ti explains more ful­ly in a Sound Opin­ions inter­view:

Fripp was avail­able only one week­end. So he came to Berlin, brought his gui­tar, no ampli­fi­er. He record­ed his gui­tar in the stu­dio. We had to play the track very very loud because he was rely­ing on the feed­back from the stu­dio mon­i­tors. So it was deaf­en­ing work­ing with him.

Where­as every­one thinks it’s an ebow, this mag­i­cal gui­tar gad­get called an ebow. In fact it was­n’t an ebow, it was just the feedback–Fripp play­ing this “dah uhh­hh dahh uhhh” that beau­ti­ful motif. And Fripp record­ed a sec­ond time with­out hear­ing the first one. It was a lit­tle bit more cohe­sive, but still quite was­n’t right, and he said, “Let me do it again. Just give me anoth­er track. I’ll do it again.” And we silenced the first two tracks and he did a third pass, which was real­ly great. He nailed it. And then I had the bright idea: I said, “Look let me just hear what it sounds like with the oth­er two tracks. You nev­er know.”

We played it, all three tracks togeth­er, and you know, I must reit­er­ate Fripp did not hear the oth­er two tracks when he was doing the third one so he had no way of being in sync. But he was strange­ly in sync. And all his lit­tle out-of-tune wig­gles sud­den­ly worked with the oth­er pre­vi­ous­ly record­ed gui­tars. It seemed to tune up. It got a qual­i­ty that none of us antic­i­pat­ed. It was this dreamy, wail­ing qual­i­ty, almost cry­ing sound in the back­ground. And we were just flab­ber­gast­ed.

It was a typ­i­cal­ly Eno-Vis­con­ti way to find a new sound. That sound, Vis­con­ti says above, is all over the track. For this rea­son, Fripp has been engaged in legal bat­tles with David Bowie’s estate over his cred­it, insist­ing that he should have “fea­tured play­er” sta­tus, a legal des­ig­na­tion that would give him greater rights to remu­ner­a­tion. Always a shame when wran­gling over mon­ey comes between the cre­ators of great music, but in this case, Bri­an Eno and Tony Vis­con­ti both sup­port Fripp’s claims, and so per­haps would Bowie if he were here.

What­ev­er it takes to be a “fea­tured play­er,” Fripp sailed over the thresh­old on “Heroes.” He demon­strates it again in the King Crim­son trib­ute, mak­ing one gui­tar sound like three onstage, and in the video above, which he released with his wife Toy­ah for VE Day. The back­ing track is from the Berlin per­for­mance at the top, with dubbed vocals by Toy­ah and gui­tar, of course, by Fripp, play­ing the same Gib­son Les Paul he flew into the stu­dio with in 1977, and look­ing just as sin­gu­lar­ly unim­pressed by the pro­ceed­ings.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch David Byrne Lead a Mas­sive Choir in Singing David Bowie’s “Heroes”

David Bowie’s “Heroes” Delight­ful­ly Per­formed by the Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain

Pro­duc­er Tony Vis­con­ti Breaks Down the Mak­ing of David Bowie’s Clas­sic “Heroes,” Track by Track

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness