Denise, DJs, and Detroit

So just to clarify that last bit about the crowd in my last post, the crowd was primarily African American which is so different from the Movement festival crowds. At Movement, most of the people there are white and much younger than at the Ribs n' Soul Festival. Movement is more of a ravers' festival, although there is still a pretty diverse crowd there, it seems like the majority of the people who come are young, white ravers.

Anyway, here is the lineup at the house music stage:

Rick Wilhite
Reggie "Hotmix" Harrell
Minx
Delano Smith
(I heard all of these DJs, some from a distance)

I missed:
Theresa Hill
DJ Cent
Al Ester
Bruce Bailey
Marc Duncan

Then WhoDat and I caught the end of Stacy "Hot Waxx" Hale, and then got to enjoy the full set of Terrence Parker! Of course it was great.

The crowd was interesting. There were a lot of adults in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s there, some teenagers and kids running around. The crowds circled through during TP's set. For about the first half, most of the people were older, some were house heads (people who are into house music – there's a small but active group of house heads in Detroit who come out frequently). There were some people doing the hustle, or a type of line dancing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustle_(dance)

One guy was eating and drinking while doing the hustle – it was pretty awesome! Some of the people dancing were really focused and serious about it, and some were really goofy, but good dancers. It was interesting to watch.

TP played a good set, lots of songs that I have heard him play out before – it's interesting how some DJs have a selection of tracks or records that they really like to play. It was fun to listen to. And of course I forgot my camera, so WhoDat took some photos with her camera and will share them with me. Thank you!

On the drive there and then back home, WhoDat and I had some interesting conversations. We talked about politics, Kwame Kilpatrick, Obama and Bush and McCain, patriotism, McDonald's and food allergies, poverty, racism and segregation in Detroit, basic city services like snow plowing that barely exist within the city of Detroit – when it snows, people just don't go out because their streets don't get plowed or salted. That's completely different from the suburbs. In places like Oak Park and Ferndale, there are no problems with these kinds of basic city services. Its really sad that Detroit is in such a state – the education system is falling apart and there are major budget cuts every year, meaning lots of schools closing and lots of teachers being fired; taxes and utilities are extremely high and the housing market is dismal – huge houses set at very low prices and no one is buying them; Kwame is failing this city in unprecedented ways with all the corruption and funding cuts and lack of basic services for the citizens of Detroit. It's very disturbing.