SPILL FESTIVAL REVIEW: MOVEMENT MUSIC FESTIVAL 2023 @ HART PLAZA, DETROIT – MOODYMANN SETS THE MOOD

MOVEMENT MUSIC FESTIVAL 2023 @ HART PLAZA, DETROIT

MOODYMANN SETS THE MOOD

SATURDAY MAY 27, 2023 – SET TIME: 5:30-7:30PM

Detroit’s Movement Festival has taken place annually over the US Memorial Day long weekend, in late May, since 2006. The festival has evolved into a cultural phenomenon, celebrating the city’s rich musical heritage and its influence on the global electronic music scene. First and foremost, it is a Detroit party, and the local acts are some of the festival’s highlights.

Kenny Dixon Jr. is a time traveler. Better known as Moodymann, this Detroit techno and house veteran and the owner of the Mahogani Music and KDJ record labels takes us effortlessly back to the times he comes from in his two-hour Movement set.

Coming on stage with a head covering, black kerchief covering his mouth and nose and trademark bottle round glasses, he seems parts avenger but really is a simple messenger. The journey he takes us on is not linear or seamless. It is part Star Trek but all music. There are fissures in his time and space as he takes us to house-inflected techno and veering to slabs of warm and soothing 70s soul with quiet dancing girls twirling in choreographed moves. He remembers and shouts out Detroit often, none more poignant, than the hip hop stabs of the late great Detroit mastermind Dilla. If that is not enough there are quirky, but effective stops, to the B52s “Planet Claire” and the firing of Supertramp’s “Cannonball”. The music was punctuated by occasional exhortations of hope and encouragement. “Let nobody tell you who the f*ck you are./There is nobody on the planet who walks the way you walk, talks the way you talk and do the things you do.”

The traffic on his stage resembled a large living room and this very felt very much like a celebration of Detroit’s progenitor status and important legacy of helping to create techno and electronic dance music. Moodymann made sure to let everyone know that Movement is first and foremost a Detroit party.

(Photography by Paul van der Werf)

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