Juan Atkins

Juan Atkins, born 1962 in Detroit, is the widely credited originator of techno. As a Belleville, Michigan teenager he befriended Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, the trio that became techno's founding circle. With Rick Davis he formed Cybotron in 1980, whose electro track "Clear" (1983) fused Kraftwerk's machine rhythms with Parliament-Funkadelic's cosmic sensibility. After the duo split in 1985, Atkins recorded as Model 500 and launched Metroplex, whose release "No UFO's" (1985) is regarded as one of the first true techno records. Also working as Infiniti, he built Metroplex's catalogue through the 1990s, cementing Detroit as techno's birthplace and earning him the title "the originator."