Some of the guests who’ve shown up to speak to the students in King James Britt’s music course at UC San Diego look like the lineup for an all-star music festival—James Poyser, Jill Scott, Questlove, Herbie Hancock, George Clinton, Wajeed, Honey Dijon. It’s unsurprising since Britt has spent more than 30 years composing, producing, and performing electronic music, including in his work with De La Soul, Digable Planets, Tyshawn Sorey, Madlib, and many more.

In 2020, he started teaching his “Blacktronika: Afrofuturism in Electronic Music” course, which researches and features the people of color who created and continue to innovate the genres within this style of music.

“I have been deeply engaged in shaping and advancing electronic music culture,” says the Philadelphia native. “My academic research centers on amplifying the overlooked contributions of innovators of color within the evolution of electronic music.” He’s on the program for the Juneteenth Jubilee event at the San Diego Central Library from noon to 5 p.m. on June 14, where he’ll talk about “Blacktronika.” The schedule also includes live music, San Diego Poet Laureate Paola Capo-Garcia, The Back Alley Poets, Chante Summers, and the Dennis Gittens Jazz Duo.

Britt, 56, is a professor in the computer music program at UC San Diego, lives in downtown San Diego and took some time to talk about his work and sharing this history of electronic music with younger fans.

Can you talk about your introduction to music, in general, and then to electronic music, specifically?

OK, so my intro to music was in the womb. Both parents were music collectors; my mother was immersed in jazz vocalists and the more avant garde jazz, and my father is a funkateer, funk or nothing. So, in the womb, I heard all of this. By the time I entered the physical world, I was already gravitating to these sounds. As a child, my mother constantly took me to concerts and shows. She knew so many musicians and artists, including Sun Ra, which is the first person, in person, that I saw use a synthesizer. It was Herbie Hancock records and many others that pushed me into creating music, as opposed to playing music on vinyl for my father’s barber shop at 4 years old.

It was while I was in my first and second years of college that DJing and producing became a lucrative path that was starting to align with my desires. I was working at Tower Records and creating music — my entire life was music. Tower gave me access to so many connections because I was a buyer for the 12-inch dance section. I had my first successful record in 1990 and never looked back. Josh Wink, DJ Dozia, Blake, and I were a crew of friends who changed the Philadelphia music scene in the early ’90s. It really was a powerful moment.

As the title of your course tell us, you aren’t only looking at the history of electronic music, but incorporating Afrofuturism into your teaching. Generally, Afrofuturism is understood as cultural movement using Black history, art, and culture with elements of science fiction, to imagine a future of liberation for Black people. How would you describe the way that you think about/define Afrofuturism?

I use this lens because it’s a very good way to frame the mindset of the innovators in electronic music. Most of the innovators of these moments (Sun Ra, Lee Scratch Perry, King Tubby, etc.) were important visionaries and used imagination and dreaming to shape their own reality, which was worldbuilding to change others’ reality, as well as our future. It’s one thing to imagine it, but it’s another to actually “be it.”

Of course, the term “Afrofuturism” has been a word of controversy within the culture in the beginning of its use because it was coined by Mark Dery (1994), a White academic; but also, it’s another “box” or term that had the potential of being limiting. However, it really was a great intersection to bring all these Black traditions that interweave with one another into a clear understanding of the layers and textures of Black innovation and change, through art.

What I love about downtown San Diego…

I can walk everywhere. It’s a little grimy and it reminds me of what I miss about Philly, the walkability. 

In your class, how are you connecting Afrofuturism with electronic music, particularly as it relates to ideas of Black liberation?

The course also shows how important socio-political context is to every genre created from Black and other cultures of color. It’s not a pretty and packaged history, either. These genres are the result of a lot of pain and resilience. For example, Sun Ra was a Black avant garde jazz musician, the first to incorporate electronics into his compositions, who created his own universe with his big band ‘arkestra’ that was aligned with Egyptology, mathematics, and Black literature during the Jim Crow era. Starting in Birmingham, Ala., his birthplace, and then migrating to Chicago, Ill., and seeing and hearing his cosmology and world grow into one of the most influential collectives of modern times, is everything Black liberation stands for. Not only Black liberation, but liberation for whoever wants to follow suit.

Or, we can look at Detroit and how Black people invented techno, which has always been a touchy and controversial subject. Now, after much whitewashing, it’s (roots are) coming to light and I feel “Blacktronika” has had a small part in bringing this to the forefront, along with UMA, Underground and Black, and many other collectives. For the city of Detroit, techno was created by the Bellville 3 — Juan Atkins, Kevin Sanderson, and Derrick May—according to Alvin Toffler’s “Third Wave” book. Musically creating robotic soul that was influenced by the automotive industry and Motown, there was a consistent presence of technology. With this influence came the music of the future, which helped rebuild a city from the (damage of the) Detroit riots into a metropolis that draws people from all over the world to hear the music from the originators, every year, at the Movement Festival. That is Black liberation—rebuilding your city with art.

In a previous interview, you said that a goal of yours with your course was to “bring this knowledge to all young people who are enjoying all the newer sounds of electronic music sot that they know the history, sonic lineages and socio-political context in which this music [is] made.” Do you feel like you’ve been able to do that so far? What has that looked like in practice, sharing the history, sonic lineages, and socio-political context involved in the making of electronic music?

Oh, absolutely. The course, the Blacktronika Festivals I do around the world, and workshops all have really opened the eyes of young and old. It’s a way to tether the various threads of the music and history; I was so glad to see this in the movie “Sinners”! Excellent work. You will see at the library.

Are there artists that your students have introduced you to?

Actually, my students are the ones who are making some insane music. Local artist Guy Laborde, Kado (KillAndDieOnce), and Myles Ortiz-Green—major, major sounds that will definitely take them to great heights. The music that has been introduced would have to be in my “Blacktronika” class when students dive into their cultures for one of the assignments on breakbeats. Some of the Indian, Vietnamese, and Chinese breaks are insane!

What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

Don’t create for others, create for your own happiness and satisfaction. This will resonate with many.

What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?

That I love being alone, hahaha. People are always surprised. I can really be introverted, but you would never know.

Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.

Going to LA (kidding). It would be going to any Future Is Color event or West Coast Weekender event.