Moodymann

There’s a story Moodymann likes to tell about the time before he became one of the most renowned artists in the history of dance music. In the early 1990s, when he was still merely a Detroiter named Kenny Dixon Jr., he slipped into a music shop and, unbeknownst to the staff, recorded a demo to cassette using equipment he couldn’t afford to rent, much less purchase. It’s a story about his personal daring, sure, but it’s also about the legacy of house: the willingness to work within limitations, to borrow and steal so long as the thievery yields something of sufficient irresistibility. Moodymann has released music almost metronomically since his serene 1997 debut, Silentintroduction. His albums locate dance and electronic genres in long musical lineages, incorporating gospel, soul and funk in a way that positions his work as an evolution of the past rather than a sharp break from it.