NL premiere
Detroit trio HiTech are comprised of producers King Milo, Milf Melly, and 47Chops. Their fresh take on ghettotech music pulls from a wide range of influences to provide a singular sound that is part hip hop, part techno, and all-the-way danceable. The three producers had been making music as part of Detroit’s underground rap scene before finding comradery in a strange circumstance: coming to the realisation that they had all been seeing the same person, unbeknownst to each other. From this unlikely starting point, the trio’s music ended up finding its way to Detroit techno legend Omar S. Speaking to Rolling Stone, 47Chops recalls what happened after he approached Omar S with a HiTech demo tape: “He was telling us he had played that shit all summer, just playing it in the whip, riding around and shit like that.” Their self-titled debut – which includes their bass-heavy breakout “CashApp” – was released on Omar S’s FXHE Records in 2022. Their followup, Détwat (2023), is a wonderland of diverse ghettotech sounds. It’s rich with sped-up samples, smooth piano chords, catchy hooks, and hip-hop verses. Each song pulses with a playful energy that spans deep house to techno, even veering in some moments toward R&B and footwork territory. They’re “not genre-bending in a formal sense,” says King Milo in Rolling Stone. “I would say genre-bending like Avatar: The Last Airbender.”