Juan Atkins, the DJ and producer who essentially invented techno and also gave the genre its name, has passed away. As Resident Advisor reports, Atkins was found unresponsive in a Mexico City hotel room on Saturday, ahead of a planned performance at YuYu Cine Club. He was pronounced dead after being taken to a local hospital.
No cause of death has been reported yet. Atkins was born in Detroit and mostly raised in the neighboring town of Belleville. In high school, he became close friends with fellow future Detroit techno pioneers Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson; they later formed a group called the Belleville Three.
While studying at Washtenaw Community College, Atkins met Vietnam War veteran Richard Davis, and the two of them formed the duo Cybotron in 1980. Atkins and Davis both loved the Afro-futuristic funk of Parliament-Funkadelic and the early electronic music of Kraftwerk, and they fused it in the minimal sci-fi sound of Cybotron, recording with only synthesizers and drum machines. Cybotron released their debut single "Alleys Of Your Mind" in 1981, and it got regional Black radio exposure from the Electrifying Mojo, a hugely influential DJ who would play funk and new wave records together.
Cybotron released their full-length debut Enter on the independent label Fantasy in 1983, and it included "Clear," the icy, robotic, fantastical electro-funk odyssey that set the sonic template for techno. Over the years, "Clear" has been sampled dozens of times, including on hits like Missy Elliott's "Lose Control." In 1985, Atkins left Cybotron and started his own Metroplex label. There, he released solo tracks under the name Model 500.
Over the years, Atkins made a few albums under the Model 500 name. His style became faster and more physical without losing its minimal, mechanistic edge. He gave the genre a name when he contributed a track called "Techno Music" to a 1988 compilation.
As the Detroit techno sound branched out into different rave variations and found new audiences across the planet, Atkins became an eloquent advocate for the sound and the transcendent impulses behind it. Atkins continued to make records under his own name and under aliases like Model 500 and Infiniti. He also dabbled in other projects — reviving Cybotron, teaming up with his Detroit peers as the Belleville Three, and forming the duo Borderland with German DJ Moritz von Oswald.
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