Juan Atkins calls DJ list "racist".
Legendary Detroit techno DJ Juan Atkins has slammed The DJ List's top 100 in a Facebook post this week, calling out the lack of diversity amongst the producers featured.
Atkins, who has been widely credited as the originator techno music, called the list "racist" as there are just two producers featured in the the top 100 list.
"WTF, are they trying to be funny? That's a slap in the face of the entire black race basically," Atkins wrote.
"No Derrick May, No Jeff Mils, etc. etc. are nowhere on their list. C'mon man, it's 2016 now and there's no place in DJ culture, or anywhere for that matter for racism. And I'm not going to stand idly by and watch this shit go down right before my eyes."
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Atkins went on to say that be would "lead the crusade for The DJ List to be destroyed, dismantled, deleted and replaced."
"And what they probably don't realize, is that they're doing it to themselves by publishing a racist top 100 dj list. Because everyone knows that Black DJ's are amongst the best out there and are largely responsible for the development of this dance music & DJ culture."
In an additional statement posted just hours later, Atkins insisted he wasn't concerned about personally not being featured on the list.
"This is about economic warfare and the battle lines have been drawn," he wrote.
As THUMP reports, managing director of The DJ List David DeMember pointed out that the list is curated by compiling artists' rankings "using algorithms and user data as opposed to social media and voting, both of which can be hacked more easily", rather than by fans voting.
Atkins yesterday commented on the list, "After further review, and reading people's post about my comments, there maybe a popularity contest protocol that maybe in play here that black DJs don't participate in, and therefore it's possible that this racism factor may not be intentional. Never the less the final outcome still looks racist."
Read the full set of posts below.
What's heavy on my mind right now is that I recently discovered "The DJ List". And to my dismay, their top 100 DJ's list...
Posted by Juan Atkins on Tuesday, 26 January 2016
Thank you all for participating in this discussion. Now that some light has been shed on this subject, maybe these fake...
Posted by Juan Atkins on Wednesday, 27 January 2016
I understand what everybody is saying about these list, and I agree. But the fact remains that if my name was #1 on any...
Posted by Juan Atkins on Wednesday, 27 January 2016
Please understand that this is not about me wanting to be on some cheese wiz dj list. This is about economic warfare and...
Posted by Juan Atkins on Thursday, 28 January 2016