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Living for the City

Living for the City

The Artists Who Left Detroit and the Pull That Brought Them Home | Living for the City Ep. 6

Jun 17, 2026 · 25m

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About this episode

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.…