A history of Black electronic music can’t exist without Philly. Philly DJ, producer, and UCSD professor King Britt tells us why.

King Britt is bringing Blacktronika back home.

In 2020, the Philadelphia DJ and producer — then a newly hired computer music professor at University of California, San Diego — created a course called “Blacktronika: Afrofuturism in Electronic Music.”

The popular class honors “people of color who pioneered groundbreaking genres within electronic music,” citing innovators like Sun Ra, Flying Lotus, and Philadelphia poet Moor Mother. Featured guests have included Herbie Hancock, Questlove, and Nile Rodgers.

It has also grown into a music festival: Britt has presented Blacktronika events in New York, Paris, Los Angeles, and Durham, N.C. And now, as part of ArtPhilly’s festival What Now: 2026, Britt has curated the series “Blacktronika: Philadelphia Now and Then." It is supported with a $50,000 grant.

It takes place over seven nights in four venues around the city.

The Southwest Philly-raised artist, who founded the Ovum Recordings label with then musical partner Josh Wink, and created the Philly house and soul music project Sylk 130 in the 1990s, has a full week worth of musical history lessons in store for his hometown.

“This is different from any other Blacktronika festival,” said Britt, 58, speaking via Zoom from the UC San Diego campus. “At all of the other Blacktronika events, I fly people in from all over the world,” said the DJ, who was born King James Britt. “For this one, I wanted to illuminate just Philly.”

Philadelphia’s role in Blacktronika history dates as far back as Sun Ra’s forays into electronic music in the 1960s and forward to 102-year-old Arkestra leader Marshall Allen’s mastery of the electronic valve instrument.

Britt’s personal connection to Philadelphia’s Afrofuturism goes back to when his mother, who was friendly with members of the Arkestra, would take him to rehearsals at the Sun Ra house in Germantown.

“I didn’t understand the music when I was a kid,” he said. “But I loved the costumes.”

The band members were all dressed in colorful Space Age outfits.

A Central High School graduate, Britt was studying marketing at Temple when he dropped out as his career took off.

Working with Wink under the name E-Culture, the duo had an international deep house hit with “Tribal Confusion” in 1990, when Britt was the dance music buyer at the Tower Records store on South Street. He toured as DJ for the Grammy-winning hip-hop group Digable Planets early that decade and teamed with Wink for a long-running series at Fluid nightclub called “The Womb.”

The 2005 album King Britt Presents: Sister Gertrude Morgan married dance beats with street-corner sermons by the New Orleans folk artist. And his Afrofuturist project Fhloston Paradigm showcased his love of sci-fi, in particular Luc Besson’s 1997 film The Fifth Element.

Britt never thought of himself as an educator until an ex-girlfriend and his daughter Summer Sloane-Britt — now an art professor at Occidental College — urged him to apply for the post at UC San Diego in 2019.

He did a Skype job interview while in Portugal for a gig, and though he doesn’t have an undergraduate degree, got hired on the basis of a lifetime of experience.

“My CV was 40 pages long,” he said. “It was crazy.”

Shortly after moving from Philly to Southern California, Britt realized that “no one was talking about Chicago house, Detroit techno, drum & bass, dub. Ninety percent of the dance music we listen to is rooted in Black culture. But the pedagogy was nonexistent. So I created Blacktronika.”

The course debuted with 20 students the first week of the COVID-19 lockdown, with guests including Greg Tate, the critic who Britt calls “my mentor.” Tate died in 2021; his seminal book Flyboy in the Buttermilk has just been reissued on Questlove’s AUWA imprint.

Now, Britt has 420 students for his virtual Blacktronika class. Interviews with guests like George Clinton, Patrice Rushen, and the Arkestra’s Allen and Knoel Scott are archived at Blacktronika.com.

In a post-Zoom-interview email, Professor Britt — who is now tenured and was named MacArthur Foundation Endowed Chair in Digital Media and Learning in 2025 — expounded on Philadelphia’s central role in Blacktronika history.

He cited drummer Earl Young’s “development of the four-on-the-floor rhythmic approach that became foundational to Disco and later House music” and Dexter Wansel “expanding the sonic palette of Philadelphia International Records.”

The prof who is working on a Blacktronika book gives props to “the turntablism of Cash Money and Jazzy Jeff,” plus gangsta rap pioneer Schoolly D, as well as the Roots and their keyboard player James Poyser.

It was ArtPhilly co-founder Bill Adair who brought in Britt, says Tania Isaac, a curatorial director of the fest. Britt “is singular in terms of what he represents,” said Isaac. “Artists who are from Philly, whose work is grounded in Philly, but are global. We’re able to support artists coming home.”

Britt’s series kicks off at Fishtown cocktail lounge Margolis on Tuesday, spotlighting TastyTreats, the party hosted by Stacey “Flygirrl” Wilson. DJs Mike Nyce and Yameen Allworld will be joined by a just-announced special guest: DJ Jazzy Jeff.

Wednesday night’s Johnny Brenda’s showcase was designed as a tribute to Wansel, the songwriter and producer whose groundbreaking synth-centric album Life on Mars was released in 1976.

Wansel was scheduled to join a Philly all-star band with Black Buttafly on keys, Anthony Tidd on bass, Tim Motzer on guitar, Elliot Levin on sax, and singers Lady Alma and Tonja Dixon. Poet Ursula Rocker was also on the bill.

But Wansel died last month at 75, so the inaugural Blacktronika Icon Award will be presented posthumously to his son, producer Pop Wansel. Black Music Month founder Dyana Williams will host.

The week also includes a celebration of the Beat Society hip-hop party hosted by rapper Hezekiah on Thursday at Johnny Brenda’s, followed by Moor Mother’s Rockers at Solar Myth on Friday, and an Illvibe Collective soiree at King Fu Necktie on Saturday.

On Sunday at Silk City, Tracey Moore of Jazzyfatnastees hosts a tribute to Black Lily, the neo-soul incubator that helped birth the careers of Jill Scott, John Legend, and others. That band will include many Wansel tribute players, plus punk rock skateboarder and drummer Chuck Treece.

Britt will perform on Monday, when he’ll DJ and be joined by guests at Silk City, paying homage to Back2Basics, the party that blended DJs with instrumentation, which he created with Dozia Blakey in 1990.

Each day during Blacktronika week except Saturday, Britt and guests will join Clubfriends Radio and Records founder Alexa Colas for conversations at her Meantime pop-up at 926 Market St. It’s free.

And “Philadelphia Now and Then” is only part one of Britt’s plan to bring Blacktronika back to his home town.

in November 2027, he’ll partner with the African American Museum of Philadelphia for “Tangible: Blacktronika Artifacts and Archives,” an exhibit funded by a $360,000 grant from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.That will be accompanied by a second Britt-curated Blacktronika festival, which he says will include artists “from all over the world.”

But before he brings the world to Philadelphia, “Philadelphia Now and Then” will first tell the story of how Blacktronika blossomed in his home town.

“It’s important to honor all the parties that were pushing the sonics, the sound of electronic Blackness in Philly,” Britt said. “From Philly, born in Philly, all the musicians are Philly. Everything’s Philly.”

King Britt’s “Blacktronika: Philadelphia Now and Then” takes place from Tuesday, June 23, to Monday, June 29, at venues across the city. Information at artphilly.org.