K-Hand

Celebrated as "The First Lady of Detroit Techno," K-Hand was an influential DJ who helped pioneer and popularize her hometown's dance culture, while also paving the way for female DJs in a genre typically populated by men. She was born as "Kelli Maria Hand" in Detroit, Michigan, on September 15, 1964. Although an avid fan of the rival club scenes in New York City and Chicago during her teenage years, she chose to remain in Detroit, where she studied DJ techniques in her bedroom and began performing locally during the 1980s. Operating under the alias of K-Hand, she issued her debut EP, Think About It, in 1990, and followed its release with a handful of additional EPs. Her 1994 single "Global Warning" was released by the British label Warp Records and helped increase her global profile, and she made her full-length debut one year later with 1995's On a Journey. Now known as an ambassador for Detroit's house and techno scenes, K-Hand released a trio of albums — The Art of Music, Ready for the Darkness, and Soul — in 1997, and spent the first two decades of the 2000s focusing on a steady stream of EPs. 2015's Intuition and 2017's Project 6 proved to be her final releases, with 2017 also marking the year that the city of Detroit honored K-Hand with a Testimonial Resolution certificate recognizing her trailblazing achievements in the male-dominated field of electronic music. Suffering from atherosclerosis during the final years of her life, she passed away in Detroit on August 3, 2021, at 56 years old.

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