Inner City is an American electronic music group that formed in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

, in 1987. The group was originally composed of the

record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure. Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

and composer

Kevin Saunderson Kevin Maurice Saunderson (born September 5, 1964) is an American electronic dance music Dj and record producer. He is famous for being a member of a trio, along with Juan Atkins and Derrick May, who came to be known as The Belleville Three, w ...

and the

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Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

, vocalist Paris Grey. Saunderson is renowned as one of the Belleville Three—along with

Juan Atkins Juan Atkins (born September 12, 1962), also known as Model 500 and Infiniti, is an American record producer and DJ from Detroit, Michigan. '' Mixmag'' has described him as "the original pioneer of Detroit techno." He has been a member of The Be ...

and Derrick May—high school friends who later originated the

Detroit techno Detroit techno is a type of techno music that generally includes the first techno productions by Detroit-based artists during the 1980s and early 1990s. Prominent Detroit techno artists include Juan Atkins, Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, Jeff Mil ...

sound. In February 2018, ''Billboard'' magazine ranked them as the 69th most successful dance artists of all-time.

Musical career

Inner City topped the US Billboard dance chart five times, and had nine top 40 hits on the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

. The group is best known for its early dancefloor-pop music crossover tracks " Big Fun" (UK #8, US Dance #1) and "Good Life" (UK #4, US Dance #1). Other hits include "Do You Love What You Feel" (UK #16, US Dance #1) and "Whatcha Gonna Do with My Lovin'" (UK #12, US Dance #8). The

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...

s to these songs received significant airplay throughout the world. Later work introduced a hybrid of techno, jazz and swing beats with a more soulful sound in the vein of downtempo British groups such as

Soul II Soul Soul II Soul are a British musical collective formed in London in 1988. They are best known for their two major hits; 1989's UK number five and US number eleven " Keep On Movin'", and its follow-up, the UK number one and US number four " Back to ...

and

Massive Attack Massive Attack are an English trip hop collective formed in 1988 in Bristol by Robert "3D" Del Naja, Adrian "Tricky" Thaws, Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall. The debut Massive Attack album '' Blue Lines'' was releas ...

. The group recorded three albums for Virgin/EMI Records and two singles for Columbia/SME Records. In the early nineties Tommy Onyx was brought on to be the band leader for Inner City live shows. Onyx co wrote the hits “Hallelujah”, “Fire” & “Bad Girl” and produced the Spanish language version of Good Life, “Buena Vida”. In 2017 a new incarnation of the group was formed with Kevin Saunderson’s youngest son Dantiez joining as a permanent fixture. Dantiez and Kevin’s first single as Inner City, “Good Luck”, was released April 14, 2017 on KMS. “Good Luck” features vocals from LaRae Starr and includes remixes from DEAS, Sure Is Pure and Chuck Daniels. In 2018, Steffanie Christi’an was added as vocalist. In 2020, the Saundersons (Kevin and his son Dantiez) released a new Inner City album with Christi'an as the main vocalist. Called ''We All Move Together'', the title track which featured a spoken word performance from actor Idris Elba. Elba also featured on the single "No More Looking Back", which was the first Inner City project to be released by

Defected Records In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...

, a British independent record label specialising in house music.

Discography

Albums

* Album was released as ''Big Fun'' in North America.

Singles

References

External links