ALEX ROY: We're getting into some better
neighborhoods now, see?
The stores are open.
Check it out.
Leaving the Ford Model T Factory yesterday, I was
getting concerned, because I want to believe in Detroit.
Still hadn't found the road map, or even the people who
would guide us to what the real life here is.
So this morning, Vietze and I took a trip down to one of
these abandoned warehouses.
Not for the ruin porn, but to look at a piece of modern
Detroit history.
And I'm not talking about the decline of manufacturing.
I'm talking about the music industry.
Detroit had something for years that other
cities don't have--
a thriving rave culture.
Gone for 20 years in New York and DC, alive, five, six,
seven, eight years ago here, but destroyed by
the anti-rave laws.
So I look at this building, completely destroyed factory.
I don't see a manufacturing plant gone.
I saw what could have been one of the rebirth paths for the
city, which was the music scene.
I mean, seriously, parties in here?
Look, I'm not a Motown guy.
I'm an electronica guy.
I mean, you're a DJ.
You're a musician.
MICHAEL D. ELLISON: But all that music that you were into
was all European style.
ALEX ROY: Really?
MICHAEL D. ELLISON: Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, all your favorite artists were European artists.
ALEX ROY: So what electronic music came
out of Detroit then?
MICHAEL D. ELLISON: Well, this is, what they say, the
birthplace of techno.
And let's not be confused--
you said electronic music and electronica.
But I'm talking about techno.
That's a specific genre of electronic music, and it was
born in Detroit.
ALEX ROY: I can see why.
MICHAEL D. ELLISON: Well, I mean, you look at these
buildings and it's wonder why they had such
insane parties here.
Look at this place.
It's perfect.
ALEX ROY: There was still a lot more happening elsewhere
in the city.
And this is not a reason to be pessimistic at all.
Mike Ellison is a Detroit-based
musician and artist.
I mean, this is not a guy who grew up here
and said, I'm staying.
Let's figure it out.
He went to UVA.
He's not even from Detroit.
He studied music business.
He was an agent.
He worked in sports marketing.
But he wanted to go back to music himself, and so he went
to Detroit.
And here, he started his new life and got married,
and he loves it.
Detroit ended up being as full of surprises as I'd hoped-- in
fact, even better.
One of them was meeting Detroit-based artist and
musician, Mike Ellison.
Mike--
MICHAEL D. ELLISON: Alex.
ALEX ROY: Thank you so much for joining us.
MICHAEL D. ELLISON: What's happenin', man?
ALEX ROY: I have so many questions for you, but the
first one has to be, Detroit produced so much great music
since decades before the collapse that has become the
story recently.
MICHAEL D. ELLISON: Sure.
ALEX ROY: What is it about Detroit that made it the
origin of so much amazing music?
MICHAEL D. ELLISON: I think, as somebody who came to
Detroit willingly, I think it's culture and I think it's
adversity, man.
Out of adversity, you can create some incredible things.
And I think there's a lot of rich culture here in Detroit
that people don't know.
There's over 100 languages spoken in this city.
And you also have the great migration from the South to
the North of folks who came up to work in factory jobs or in
the auto boom.
And they brought with them blues and jazz and all kind of
styles of music that have just morphed into
what you see today.
You know, everything from hip hop to rock and roll, techno.
initially I was working for a sports management firm,
representing professional athletes.
ALEX ROY: A whole different career.
MICHAEL D. ELLISON: A whole different career--
suit, tie, the whole nine.
ALEX ROY: And then what made you decide to make that change
in Detroit?
MICHAEL D. ELLISON: The artistry, man.
It inspired.
I mean, you come to Detroit, we've got artists falling out
of the sky in every discipline.
As you see here, this art installation.
So it was inspiring to me.
And I wanted to find my creative voice, and Detroit
inspired me to do that.
ALEX ROY: Middle of the second day in Detroit, I was more
than thrilled at exactly how much further than my greatest
hopes we'd come in finding the craziest, weirdest things.
And then Ellison brought us to Heidelberg Street.
Not a coincidence, named after a German city.
And Heidelberg Street is where artists came to do something
really, really weird.
Concerned about violence and drug abuse and sales, they
began painting polka dots on houses and placing art on the
sidewalk and attracting attention to these home where
criminals were doing business.
The city did not see the logic in this, and the police
considered it vandalism.
But they brought enough attention to these homes that
drug dealing had to move.
Crime had to move.
And the art followed these people to wherever they did
business, and they had to flee the neighborhood.
And that was the story of Heidelberg Street--
a story that is so implausible that had I not seen it for
myself, I wouldn't have believed a word of it.
All right.
You're an artist.
Before we take off, you got to give us a sample of your
freestyle technique.
Show us your art.
MICHAEL D. ELLISON: I gotta give you something.
ALEX ROY: Give us something.
MICHAEL D. ELLISON: All right.
I got you, Alex.
ALEX ROY: All right, cool.
MICHAEL D. ELLISON: Take me cross country next time you
ride, and I got you.
ALEX ROY: Oh, in a heartbeat.
MICHAEL D. ELLISON: All right, there it is.
ALEX ROY: Bring it.
MICHAEL D. ELLISON: When I see these economic factors beating
down our back doors, competing with eager rappers sees
meaningless and backwards.
Backwards and meaningless seems
rappers eager with competing.
I'd rather scrap with financial forecasters who
practice unlawful tactics.
Jack us forward and backwards, but never have to pay
corporate taxes.
We ought to snatch them off their corporate jets and ask
them where the cash is.
And if them fascists don't have answers, we smack them up
like Cassius.
Wait, back up.
Scratch this.
Pardon me.
Muhammad Ali.
And we'll beseech these greedy bastards to release the
people's assets, or henceforth it's pitchforks and storming
the castles with the masses.
Haven't you seen the Ten Commandments, dammit?
This jam is part two and the flows is like Moses.
I may have to part you, too.
My mama grew up in the projects and put three of us
through college.
We are the products of her progress.
And as a consequence, I promise never to drop that
over-the-top "look what I got" nonsense.
So coming from the soul, my grandmother shoveled coal out
of potholes in the street for the hot stove to blow heat.
The woman got home fatigued but put a pot on to feed.
At least five hungry seeds plus some
neighbors who might need.
You see, these roots are quite deep.
Before you knew me as Mike E., Mike Ellison and my
development of music and CDs, benevolent men and women died
so that I might breathe.
Benevolent men and women died so that I might be free.
I know the backs on which I stand.
I know exactly who I am--
the afterlife of sacrifice, massacres and massive strife.
So as it were, I have to write-- preserve the past and
pass the mic to that enlightened young titan
crafting words after Mike, tangent vector.
That's right.
ALEX ROY: Thanks, man.
Everyone's heard about the ruin porn of the car industry,
the rise of Motown, and in some cases even the birth of
techno music.
But one of the stories of Detroit you never hear are the
tech incubators.
It just so happened-- and I didn't know this until we
arrived yesterday--
that one of my favorite websites,
Textsfromlastnight.com, was born in Detroit.
And that Ben Bator, who I'd exchanged many Facebook
messages with, was a Detroit native, and that he was here
in a very lavish tech incubator in the Madison
building, and that his is not alone among the local tech
companies or start-ups that have come to Detroit
specifically because the talent pool is pretty strong.
The car companies are looking among the local
tech talent to hire.
And that all of this has led to one of the most beautiful
and mellow and zero BS tech incubators I've
ever seen in my life.
And I've been to a lot of them-- in New York, in LA, in
Silicon Valley.
Like Heidelberg Street, I would not have believed this
could exist if I hadn't seen it myself.
Ben, thank God we found you.
BEN BATOR: Thank God I'm here.
ALEX ROY: Because you are now going to tell us about the
part of Detroit nobody talks about.
This does not involve sports, this does not involve
architecture, this does not involve music.
This involves the tech start-up community in Detroit.
And for me, and I think for the face of
it, you're the guy.
How did you start Texts from Last Night?
What is it?
BEN BATOR: Well, we started Texts from Last Night because
we had too many text messages from friends who had been a
little over-served and needed a little bit
of a reality check.
So we decided to put them all online and to kind of--
not humiliate them, but kind of make fun in a nice way.
So we had all their texts.
We put them up anonymously with just their area code, and
then we opened it up to the public so other people could
do so as well.
ALEX ROY: So people always talk about going to Silicon
Valley or New York City or occasionally LA, if you want
to raise start-up capital and go recruiting.
But we're in Detroit.
This is the one place-- you never hear about people coming
to Detroit to do that.
BEN BATOR: Right.
Well, it used to be you couldn't go to Detroit and
raise money.
You couldn't go to Detroit and sell a company.
But now we have capital here, we have space like this, and
it's really a place where you can start a company, put your
head down, work, really build a great product, and then sell
it to the world.
And we're in the--
ALEX ROY: Obviously, the real estate's cheap.
BEN BATOR: Right.
Real estate's cheap.
ALEX ROY: We hear about American companies
outsourcing so much.
But here in this city, which is, by the description of any
major journalist, completely destitute and going nowhere,
other than some cool parties and maybe some cool records,
you have an example of the best thing that could be
happening in this country, which is major corporate
insourcing.
Now we were getting into what made Detroit special.
Detroit is exactly what I hoped it would be.
It is completely and utterly the very best of what Berlin
is to Europe and that so many Europeans
don't see about Berlin.
It's one of the last places one can actually start over
for real, and be free of the shackles of the high cost of
New York rent, the expectations of a California,
LA Agent, and live--
for real, live.
It's not the last place one should consider going.
It's the first place if you're an artist, if you want really
to be free.
Detroit will be something really special that people are
going to look back from in 20 or 30 years and say, why
didn't I think of being there when I had the chance?
Well, I'll tell you this about Detroit.
I just saw a fire truck stop traffic and make a U-turn--
and I'm not convinced the call was canceled.
I think they might just be lost.
And that might be the first and last
thing I say about Detroit.
Let me tell you about Detroit.
I've seen more cars go through red lights in Detroit than
anywhere else in the world ever in my life.
I'm not talking about flashing reds.
I'm talking about full-on, hard red lights.
People just go through them.
And there's no sign that says right on red.
In fact, there's nothing about the city to
suggest that's legal.
Everything about the city suggests that
the cops don't care.
In fact, I haven't seen any cops either.
It's kind of like, the cops are down on strike and OCP
hasn't deployed at 209.
This is very weird.
Look, here comes another fire truck.
And now his lights are on, their lights are on, they're
making U-turns.
What's going on in this city?
Explain that to me.
That fire truck was coming this way, lights blazing.
He makes a U-turn, turns his lights off.
Clearly, the call's canceled.
That fire truck goes this way and then
keeps going, and then--
I'm stopping at this red.
I don't care if they do or they don't.