Blacktronika: Back2Basics
Silk City
435 Spring Garden St.
Philadelphia
June 29, 2026
While DJ culture never posed a serious threat of completely replacing live musicianship, the two disciplines have had a complicated relationship. During the electronic dance music boom of the 1990s, an immeasurable amount of ink was spilled in articles bemoaning the fact that young people were buying turntables over guitars. Despite this contention, a generation of DJs raised on live music sought to reconcile the spontaneity of live musicianship with the textural possibilities of DJing. Sometime in late 1990, Philly DJs King Britt and Dozia Blakey combined forces at Silk City Diner to launch Back2Basics, a party that would come to exemplify the fusion of DJing and live musicianship. Contemporaneous parties like New York’s Giant Step, as well as Talking Loud and Saying Something in London made up an informal network of events where live music, jazz, hip-hop and house could all live under the same roof. By 1994, the B2B DJs were rocking alongside a houseband of talented musicians. The experiment was in motion and those nights that featured Britt, Blakey, the band and a litany of guests playing together became the stuff of Philly nightlife legend.
Last night, Britt literally got the band back together for one more B2B night to close his week-long Blacktronika festival. With doors opening at 8, the dance floor at Silk City was packed early on as King manned the decks, spinning lower tempo disco and club classics like Sheila E’s “A Love Bizarre and the Staple Singer’s fantastic cover of The Talking Heads’ “Slippery People.” Once the band of Anthony Tidd (bass), Tim Motzer (guitar), Carlos Izaguiere (percussion) Chuck Treece (drums) and Blackbuttafly (keys), it was time for B2B to really get cooking. The musicians jumped in and picked up the groove that King played so seamlessly, you’d barely notice where King’s DJ set ended and the live music started. From there, Britt began calling guest vocalists Anastasia Caulfield, and B2B veterans Ursula Rucker and Tanja Dixon to the stage. Each took a turn improvising brilliantly with the band culminating with Rucker whipping the crowd into a frenzy by urging us all to not “LET… FEAR HOLD YOU HOSTAGE!!!!”
As the band took a brief break, Britt took control of the music once again, heating up the dance floor with a masterclass in House DJing. Pushing the tempo of the music and energy in the room to its limit, Britt dropped a number of classic House tracks like Shaun Escoffery’s “Days Like This,” and Crackazat’s “Shine.” The band once again made their way to the stage, caught and built upon the groove that Britt played. From there, Elliot Levin and Carla Gamble joined in, with Gamble freestyling over a chugging four on the floor groove and Levin furiously blowing on his sax. In true B2B form, legendary Philly vocalist and frequent King Britt collaborator Lady Alma closed the night. Alma’s volcanic vocal runs and chants sent an already charged up room into orbit. By the end of the night, the band was grooving hard as the crowd screamed and waved our hands through the air in ecstasy. In those final moments of B2B, it became clear that Blacktronika’s mission was twofold. This festival has not only reactivated and educated us about Philly nightlife’s past, it has revealed something very important about our present. Despite all of the political, economic and social challenges that artists face in Philadelphia, our city is still home to some of the greatest creative minds in the world.
