Lady Blacktronika

Lady Blacktronika is the house alias of Akua Grant, a California-born producer, DJ and singer who calls herself the “First Lady of Beatdown”. Her records are slow, deep and built around her own voice, and they first reached a wider audience through a Detroit radio show.

California roots

Grant was born and raised in California. She grew up on the soul and Black radio of the 1970s and 1980s, then heard early house and hardcore techno in the Bay Area in the late 1980s and early 1990s; from 1992 to 1995 she followed the mix show The Aftershock. She was also into Cocteau Twins, the 4AD label and death rock, with a goth scene to explore in downtown San Jose.

Singing came first. In 1997 she started doing vocals for Mattski, a San Jose DJ, producer and close friend. She began producing her own tracks in 2006.

Mike Huckaby’s radio show

The turning point came in 2007, when the Detroit DJ Mike Huckaby played several of her tracks on his radio show. The Spanish deep house label Deep Explorer then released her “It’s All About Survival”, which put her music on the map.

In December 2009 the new label Your Only Friend made her First Lady of Beatdown EP its first release, with “Lose My Life”, “Summertime in the City” (featuring Mattski) and “Never Everything”. Reviewing it for Resident Advisor, Todd L. Burns compared “Never Everything” to Steve Reich’s “It’s Gonna Rain”.

What beatdown sounds like

Resident Advisor describes beatdown as “ultra-deep house characterized by creamy chords, soulful melodies”. Grant’s version slows it down even further and puts the voice in front: her vocals range from soul to diva, often chopped into short loops. Reviewing her 2018 album, Cyclic Defrost placed it where deep Chicago house meets stripped-down Detroit techno.

She has released much of that music herself, on Sound Black Recordings, Sound Kemystry and Cocaine. Key titles include “Deep Luv” with Jenifa Mayanja and “Lil Re Re” on Soundblack, “Fantasize Me” on Skylax, “Set Out Your Luv” on Bassculture and “A Pain & Pleasure” on Night Moves. Her fifth album, Wax Cylinder Only, came out on Meda Fury in 2018.

Femanyst and the techno years

For a few years Grant also turned to industrial techno, under a second name, Femanyst, which keeps that work apart from the deep house of Lady Blacktronika. As Femanyst she runs the label Dark Carousel and has released on Paula Temple’s Noise Manifesto. In January 2023 Resident Advisor published her RA.868 podcast, recorded live at the Gegen and Pornceptual New Year’s Eve party at RSO.

Berlin was home for several years. Lady Blacktronika records kept coming too: the Overdose EP on STEP Recordings in spring 2021, built from older unreleased material, and “Dangers of Loving” on the French label Beat X Change.

For the Detroit side of deep house that shaped her sound, keep digging with Moodymann and Patrice Scott.