Juan Atkins

You know those artists who have been around for ages but seem to slip past you, even though they’re one of the most influential musicians of our time? That’s what happened with me and Juan Atkins. The incredibly talented 51-year-old has been going strong since the early ’80s, when it’s said that he, alongside Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, created what we know as Detroit techno. So how did Atkins and his incalculable influence fly under my radar? Call it a weird twist of fate, if you want, because I’ve never been more engrossed in an artist’s work than his since discovering what he’s done over the years. To be fair, it’s not as if Atkins’ music didn’t break through my listening experiences before. It’s simply that I didn’t recognize who was bringing me (and the rest of the world) these sounds that helped shape the work of so many others. According to Decibel, he was such a major inspiration in the late ’80s that his work reached across the globe to inspire acts such as 808 State, A Guy Called Gerald, LFO, and Black Dog. These artists found themselves trying to build upon the work of Atkins, who was (…)