- Well, the headliners at this year's Movement Festival is Detroit techno pioneer, Carl Craig.

Every year during Black History Month, he hosts a video series on Instagram titled "All Black Vinyl".

Contributor Bryce Huffman of BridgeDetroit talked with Craig about the importance of celebrating black music history.

- Why did you start your "All Black Vinyl" series and what does that medium for music mean to you personally?

(Craig hums) - During COVID, it was just hell.

(Craig laughs) - Yeah.

- And, you know, everybody was doing streaming, but not really streaming with meaning.

Of course, George Floyd and all the things that were going on at the time had such a big impact.

But I really felt that there needed to be something that I could do that had meaning.

And for Black History Month, it made sense to do a project that was about the music, about the music that is good music, but that's music that's done by whether it's people from Detroit or people from outside of Detroit that would celebrate Black History Month.

So "All Black Vinyl" just seemed to be an obvious thing for me, and it was a lot of fun to do it.

You know, instead of it being something where I would sit there and mix records for a day or something, I liked the concept of doing one a day, and I got so many people from not only inside of the United States, but outside of the United States that we're looking forward to seeing the next day that I would do a post.

See, there's Miles up there - What about the (indistinct)- - You've been collecting vinyl for years now.

How big is your collection?

And is there one record that stands out as very important to you on a personal level?

- I can always say like, oh, yeah, you know, we got all this records in stock and stuff.

Yeah, I got, you know, 50,000 records, 100,000 records.

No, it's not like that.

It's something that I don't pay attention to collecting for the sake of collecting records.

I buy it because I love the music and I want the music.

So I don't have a Fela Kuti record or a number of Fela Kuti records because that was the trend.

I have 'em because I just like the music, you know?

The music that stands out, really, the most to me, Marcus Belgrave, "Vibes from the Tribe" from Phil Ranelin, you know, the Detroit stuff.

♪ Motown ♪ ♪ And from Detroit ♪ (upbeat music) - When you go through records that you haven't listened to in a while, is there an appreciation for the recording process, the artistry that goes into making the albums that you kind of rediscover?

- Those records that were being done in the '50s, and the '60s, and even the '70s, the process of making 'em and the care of making 'em was incredible, and it's so much different than when you're using a laptop, you know?

Or, I mean, MPCs sound great and stuff, but, you know, to have the guys in the studio going straight to tape, mixing console, left, right, center, boom, you're there.

- Now, jazz, techno, hip-hop, R&B, these are all genres that have been covered on the show and all genres that are really important to black history, especially music history.

Tell me, was there a genre that you think sounds best to you when it's recorded on vinyl?

(Craig hums) - You know, there was a whole Disco Sucks movement that happened in, what was it, 1979 in Chicago.

It was a baseball game between Detroit and Chicago.

(laughs) Was it the White Sox versus the Tigers where they blew up all those pieces of vinyl.

And disco might've sucked because of all the novelty that happened with it, but a lot of those records are recorded so well, they sound incredible.

You know, there's records from Barry White that just sound enormous on the sound system.

Moody Man, he's been playing The Isley Brothers at his gigs mixed with Thundercat, and The Isley Brothers record sounds monstrous on the sound system.

("Vertigo" by Stacey Pullen plays) - As a lifelong student of black history, is there any record or group of records that you think newcomers to this history just have to listen to to fully appreciate the strides that have been made?

- You gotta go to the roots.

With black music, you have to listen to Billie Holiday, you know, you have to hear "Strange Fruit".

You have to hear the political records, the Nina Simone stuff.

You have to know that music in the same way that you have to know Elvin Jones' records, or Count Basie, or Duke Ellington, or Miles Davis, or going into the blues of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.

You have to go all the way down through it.

You have to understand why shiny suits were worn on stage.

You have to understand the Chitlin' Circuit.

You have to understand why James Brown got on because he was impersonating Little Richard, you know?

It's like the knowledge and the history is really important.

That's right, "All Black Vinyl", once again.

Enjoy yourselves.