Ron Trent is happy with the direction of the Detroit Diaspora Day Party. The longtime American DJ, known for his contributions to House Music, is set to headline the event on May 28 from noon to 10 p.m. at The Epiphany Community House, located at 10103 Kercheval St., Detroit MI 48214.
Recently, Trent spoke with rolling out to discuss the event and his career.
What does it mean to you to headline this event?
[Event organizer] Drake Phifer is a comrade of mine. I used to live in Detroit, and I live in Chicago now. The Movement started with Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May and my brother Carl Craig. They’ve been playing the festival for some years now. The Movement has gotten away from the roots of what it was and it has become more eurocentric, in a sense.
I used to play the festival, and to me, what Drake is doing is representing the essence and soul of Detroit and the essence and soul of the Midwest soulful community. I think it’s a good representation, and I think it’s needed to offset what’s already there.
When did you start DJ’ing?
I started playing around as a young DJ in 1982. I actually started doing parties and professional gigs around 1986 and 1987. I played in elementary school, I was an elementary school DJ at the time. I was one of the first guys to come in and play House Music. People would be like, “What the hell are you talking about House Music? Like house? In the basement?” Everybody in my grade at the time was not familiar.
I had a lot of older influences, and I was familiar with DJ culture because of my father. But I had no connection to going to The Warehouse, Power Plant, somewhere else, or all these places at the time. What was starting to happen was the culture was starting to spill over into the urban environment and into youth culture. House Music had predominantly been a thing in gay environments, but it was starting to become more widespread through the power of the tape and the tape deck. It started to get into the hands of young brothers like myself and some of my friends who were older than me. I started playing professionally when I was a freshman in high school.
Around that time, a lot of DJs were starting to become high school DJs. That was a thing. Battles were going on and that kind of thing. There were people who were highly connected to the club scene and people who were just inspired by the radio because we had that going on, too. I can go on-an-on about this, but really, I’ve been doing it for a long time.
