Inner City is an American electronic music group that formed in

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

, in 1987. The group was originally composed of the

record producer A record producer or music producer is a music creating project's overall supervisor whose responsibilities can involve a range of creative and technical leadership roles. Typically the job involves hands-on oversight of recording sessions; ensu ...

and composer

Kevin Saunderson Kevin Maurice Saunderson (born September 5, 1964) is an American electronic dance music DJ and record producer. He is famous for being a member of a trio, along with Juan Atkins and Derrick May, who came to be known as the Belleville Three, w ...

(born September 5, 1964) and the

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, vocalist Paris Grey (born November 5, 1965). Saunderson is renowned as one of the Belleville Three—along with

Juan Atkins Juan Atkins (born September 12, 1962), also known as Model 500 and Infiniti, is an American record producer and DJ from Detroit, Michigan. ''Mixmag'' has described him as "the original pioneer of Detroit techno." He has been a member of the Belle ...

and Derrick May—high school friends who later originated the

Detroit techno Detroit techno is a type of techno music that generally includes the first techno productions by Detroit-based artists during the 1980s and early 1990s. Prominent Detroit techno artists include Juan Atkins, Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, Jeff Mi ...

sound. In February 2018, ''Billboard'' magazine ranked them as the 69th most successful dance artists of all-time.

Musical career

Inner City topped the US ''Billboard'' dance chart five times, and had nine top 40 hits on the UK Singles Chart. The group is best known for its early dancefloor-pop music crossover tracks " Big Fun" (UK #8, US Dance #1) and " Good Life" (UK #4, US Dance #1). Other hits include "Do You Love What You Feel" (UK #16, US Dance #1) and "Whatcha Gonna Do with My Lovin'" (UK #12, US Dance #8). The

music video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...

s to these songs received significant airplay throughout the world. Later work introduced a hybrid of techno, jazz and swing beats with a more soulful sound in the vein of downtempo British groups such as

Soul II Soul Soul II Soul are a British musical collective formed in London in 1988. They are best known for their two major hits; 1989's UK number five and US number eleven " Keep On Movin'", and its follow-up, the UK number one and US number four " Back to ...

and

Massive Attack Massive Attack are an English trip hop collective formed in 1988 in Bristol, England, by Robert Del Naja, Robert "3D" Del Naja, Daddy G, Grant "Daddy G" Marshall, Tricky (musician), Adrian "Tricky" Thaws and Andrew Vowles, Andrew "Mushroom" ...

. The group recorded three albums for Virgin/EMI Records and two singles for Columbia/SME Records. In the early nineties, Tommy Onyx was brought on to be the band leader for Inner City live shows. Onyx co wrote the hits “Hallelujah”, “Fire” & “Bad Girl” and produced the Spanish language version of Good Life, “Buena Vida”. In 2017, a new incarnation of the group was formed with Kevin Saunderson's youngest son Dantiez joining as a permanent fixture. Dantiez and Kevin’s first single as Inner City, “Good Luck”, was released April 14, 2017 on KMS. “Good Luck” features vocals from LaRae Starr and includes remixes from DEAS, Sure Is Pure and Chuck Daniels. In 2018, Steffanie Christi’an was added as vocalist. In 2020, the Saundersons (Kevin and his son Dantiez) released a new Inner City album with Christi'an as the main vocalist. Called ''We All Move Together'', the title track which featured a spoken word performance from actor

Idris Elba Idrissa Akuna Elba Order of the British Empire, OBE ( ; born 6 September 1972) is an English actor and musician. He has received a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for three BAFTA Awards and six Primetime Emmy Awards, Emmy Awards. He w ...

. Elba also featured on the single "No More Looking Back", which was the first Inner City project to be released by

Defected Records Defected Records, or simply Defected, is a British independent record label specialising in house music recordings, compilation albums, events, publishing, artist bookings and management. Defected is one of the longest running independent lab ...

, a British independent record label specialising in house music.

Discography

Albums

* Album was released as ''Big Fun'' in North America.

Singles

Articles, Interviews & Reviews

"Inner City — We All Move Together", Ben Cardew, Medium, Sep 9, 2020

"Kevin Saunderson: “Black people don’t even know that techno came from Black artists”Jaguar talks to Kevin Saunderson and Idris Elba about their Inner City collaboration, the roots of techno and the future of dance music" jaguea, Mixmag, 22 October 2020

"How we made Good Life: Paris Grey and Kevin Saunderson on Inner City's house classic" interview by Interviews by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, Tue 6 Aug 2019

References

External links

* AllMusic guide about Inner City
Inner City's MySpace Fan Page

Inner City Discogs

Inner City on AllMusic (Inner City's top tracks, abums & reviews)

Kevin Saunderson on AllMusic (member of Inner City, Reese & Santonio)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Inner City Musical groups from Detroit American house music groups American dance music groups American techno music groups Virgin Records artists Columbia Records artists 1987 establishments in Michigan Musical groups established in 1987