Techno has always travelled.
Few contemporary artists illustrate that movement as clearly as Ghanaian-American DJ Akua.
Now based in Berlin, Akua spent the summer moving between important underground festivals in the United States and Europe, including The Great Beyond and WIRE in America alongside Awakenings, Stone Techno, Lighthouse, Veta and Sónar in Europe.
Her trajectory reflects the increasingly international nature of modern techno culture.
Rather than belonging exclusively to a single city or scene, artists can now develop identities through constant exchange between local communities.
For DJ Mag’s Recognise series, Akua created a vinyl-only mix divided between two musical directions.
One side moves toward jacking, funk-driven house, while the second explores tougher techno territory.
The combination is important.
Underground electronic music increasingly resists the idea that DJs must remain trapped inside tightly defined genre categories.
Akua’s selections instead highlight the historical relationship between house and techno while maintaining the intensity associated with contemporary warehouse culture.
Her Ghanaian-American background and current life in Berlin also place her inside a much wider story about how techno continues to evolve beyond the cities where its foundations were established.
Detroit created a language that travelled around the world.
Today, a new generation is moving that language back and forth across the Atlantic, absorbing new influences every time it crosses a border.
Akua is becoming one of the artists representing that exchange.