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Ghetto Tech

© Katherine Wharmby

Where else can you find songs with names like A** and T**ties and Big Booty Hoes? Not on mainstream radio, that's for sure. Yet, since mid-1999, and in Detroit for years before that, clubs all over the US have been booming with these obscenely funny house tracks by artists like DJ Assault, DJ Recloose and DJ Godfather. This fast, fun-loving, strangely old-school sounding strain of house is known as Ghetto Tech.

GTI Recordings, one of the foremost ghetto tech labels, describes the ghetto tech sound as a combination of "elements from various musical styles such as electro, [Chicago] ghetto-style house, rap music and drum n'bass." Indeed, ghetto tech's simple four-to-the-floor, snare-and-kick-heavy beats are reminiscent of the first rap tracks of the 80s. The synth effects on records like Hoez Get Naked sound like the beginnings of Detroit techno. And the monotone chants of Tear this Mothaf**ka Up and Big A** T**ties remind one of 2 Live Crew at their skanky best.

Ghetto tech is a guilty pleasure. The lyrics are mostly about women, women's bodies, women dancing, women getting naked, and being "up in the club." This is hardly intelligent house music, but it's all about having fun. The DJs themselves admit that their lyrics are born out of a desire to one-up each other in the studio; they want to see how gross and shocking they can get. At first, they even shocked their audience. According to Platform Network's article The Ghetto Tech Sound of Detroit, one of DJ Godfather's first ghetto tech gigs had half the audience standing still, offended by the lyrics, and the other half dancing furiously.

Ghetto tech was born in Detroit. It both borrows and strays from the original Detroit techno sound pioneered by Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. The computerized sounds on the records hark back to the days of the Belleville Three, but the mood isn't the same at all. Early Detroit techno had almost a nerdy feel to it; these were middle-class boys with sci-fi dreams playing with computers. Ghetto tech sounds like it has pimps behind the turntables. And, indeed, the madcap speed of the beats was taken from Detroit strip clubs, where the girls used to play the records on 45 instead of 33 so they could dance faster. Thus the alternate term for ghetto tech: booty house. Ghetto tech also rebels against the mainstreaming of Detroit techno. Juan Atkins' No UFOs was featured in a Ford Focus commercial; can you really see Chevy doing an ad to Disco D's Trick That B**ch Down?

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