Danceteria wasn’t just a nightclub. It was an artistic incubator at the heart of New York’s early 80s cultural renaissance. It became a space for musicians, artists, and activists to seek inspiration.  It was the club where Madonna performed on stage for the first time and Keith Haring painted art straight onto the walls, And in the midst of the AIDs crisis, it became the place New Yorkers escaped to find community, joy and the chance to lose themselves on the dancefloor.

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This is the story of how a Black-owned club in downtown Detroit became central to the birth of Techno. The Music Institute was only open for 18 months, but in its short lifetime, it championed the birth of Techno music and became home to some of the most influential DJs and producers of its time. It inspired a generation of young Black people to make genre shifting music that would be heard around the world for decades to come. 

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“The History of the World’s Greatest Nightclubs.” From London Audio, iHeartRadio, and executive producer Paris Hilton. 

Hosted by Ultra Naté, is a 12-part podcast exploring how different clubs around the world revolutionized the way we party. How they ushered in the birth of new genres and became hotspots for political activism. But above all how they created space for people to escape the world around them, to lose themselves in the music and leave it all on the dance floor. 

Nightclubs are sanctuaries where people find their chosen family. It's where you experience the joy of dancing in crowded rooms with people open to accepting you for who you are, or whoever you want to become, even if it’s only for the night.

Partying brings us together. Whether that’s under a mirror ball in New York or out in the sun in Lagos, beneath the glare of bright strobe lights in Berlin or while listening to the early sounds of a new genre in Detroit. They influence one another. 

Nightclubs do change the way we see the world. Because the pure joy of a good party has the unique ability to transcend language, culture and place. To reach people from different parts of the world and unite them through the magical, unshakable, desire to… dance.

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.