[2] Belleville was located near several automobile factories, which provided well-paying jobs to a racially integrated workforce.

[2] "So what happened is that you’ve got this environment with kids that come up somewhat snobby, ‘cos hey, their parents are making money working at Ford or GM or Chrysler, been elevated to a foreman, maybe even a white-collar job."

[3] Under the name Deep Space Soundworks, Atkins and May began to DJ on Detroit's party circuit.

[3] The trio began to formulate the synthesis of this dance music with the mechanical sounds of groups like Kraftwerk, in a way that reflected post-industrialist Detroit.

After Cybotron split due to creative differences, Atkins began recording as Model 500 on his own label, Metroplex, in 1985.

Although the Detroit musicians—the Belleville Three and other early pioneers like Fowlkes and James Pennington—were a close-knit group who shared equipment and studio space, and who helped each other with projects, friction developed.

[1] Juan Atkins has been lauded as the "Godfather of Techno," while May is thought of as the "Innovator" and Saunderson is often referred to as the "Elevator.

The club helped unite a previously scattered scene into an underground "family," where Saunderson, Atkins and May, DJed with fellow pioneers like Fowlkes and Blake Baxter.

[8] It allowed for collaboration, and helped inspire what would become the second wave of Detroit-area techno, which included artists whom the Belleville Three had influenced and mentored.

[9] In 1988, dance music entrepreneur Neil Rushton approached the Belleville Three to license their work for release in the UK.

Despite being labelled as the Belleville Three since the late 1980s, due in no small part to the British press, they had resisted official collaboration in the hope of distancing themselves from that moniker.