The Artists Who Left Detroit and the Pull That Brought Them Home | Living for the City Ep. 6
Living for the CityShow Notes
Every artist Detroit has ever made has had to decide at some point whether to stay or go. The ones who left never fully left.
In Episode 6 of Living for the City, host Hanif Abdurraqib follows the migration patterns of Detroit's musicians — where they went, why they left, and what brought some of them back. Berry Gordy IV, son of the Motown founder, speaks from Los Angeles about what it meant when Motown moved west and what that departure did to the city it left behind. House Shoes, the DJ who spent a decade as the keeper of Detroit hip hop culture, opens up about leaving after losing Dilla and Proof in the same year and why Detroit felt like a coffin he had to grieve somewhere else. Waajeed spent nine years in New York trying to make an ambitious plan come to life before coming back to a Detroit that had changed, but still needed him. And Ben Blackwell, who moved to Nashville to help build Third Man Records with Jack White, talks about the karmic weight of leaving a city that shaped everything he became.
Not everyone left. Some stayed because they couldn't imagine being anywhere else. Some came back because the stamp Detroit left on them was stronger than the distance. Hanif traces all of this through the lens of the Great Migration — what it costs to leave a place, and what it costs to stay.
This one is about the pull of home, and everyone who has ever felt it.
CHAPTERS 00:30 - The Episode Detroit Couldn't Contain 01:37 - The Great Migration and What It Costs to Leave 02:00 - Berry Gordy IV: Growing Up at Motown and the Move to LA 09:16 - House Shoes: Detroit Felt Like a Coffin 10:36 - Waajeed: Nine Years Away and Why He Came Back 16:47 - Ben Blackwell, Jack White, and the Nashville Decision 21:44 - Detroit's Stamp Never Fades
LINKS YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@LivingfortheCityPod Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5KYTveuTY4nydCKG8yTxjJ?si=c184740e2d9f43b5 Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/living-for-the-city/id1895831267
Stay connected! Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/livingforthecitypod/
TAGS / KEYWORDS Living for the City, Living for the City podcast, Hanif Abdurraqib, Detroit music history, Detroit musicians, leaving Detroit, Berry Gordy, Motown history, Motown Los Angeles, House Shoes, Waajeed, Ben Blackwell, Third Man Records, Jack White, Nashville, J Dilla, Proof D12, Nasan, Detroit hip hop, Detroit Great Migration, Detroit migration, Detroit vs everybody, Bob Seger, Aretha Franklin, Eminem, Detroit music scene, Detroit culture, Detroit identity, music and place, artists and home, Side Stage Network, Live Nation podcast, music podcast, Detroit culture, music history podcast, 2025 podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
More from Living for the City
Andrey Douthard is the founder of Paramita Sound, the Detroit record shop and collective that opened in 2014 and became a meeting place for the city's hip hop, electronic, and jazz artists. This is his full conversation with host Hanif Abdurraqib.
Liz Warner is an award-winning journalist and the host of Alternate Take on WDET, Detroit's NPR affiliate, where she explores music and culture in the city's most freewheeling register. This is her full conversation with host Hanif Abdurraqib.
Don Was is a Detroit native who went from playing bar gigs and gypsy weddings around the city to producing the Rolling Stones, Bonnie Raitt, and Bob Dylan, and eventually running Blue Note Records. This is his full conversation with host Hanif Abdurraqib.
Guilty Simpson is a Detroit MC and one of the few artists J Dilla chose to build an entire album around, a rapper whose commitment to craft and storytelling represents the city's hip hop underground at its most rigorous. This conversation was recorded in Detroit on what would have been J Dilla's birthday. This is his full conversation with host Hanif Abdurraqib.
Bill Blackwell has been Bob Seger's tour manager for 50 years, a career that puts him at the center of Detroit's rock and roll story from the sock hops of the late 1960s through stadium tours decades later. This is his full conversation with host Hanif Abdurraqib.