Waajeed’s Memoirs Of Hi-Tech Jazz is an ode to Black resistance and the automobile’s significance to life in his native Detroit. The producer set the tone for the album with his cinema-worthy video for “Motor City Madness.” The car ride around the city in the visual is described in the liner notes as a trip from “labor to pleasure” because the music reflects the people’s need to work and play. There are plenty of electronic keys and synthesizers meeting up with horns from soul-jazz traditions. The album is longer thanks to six 12-inch versions of songs like the party anthem “Snake Eyes.” But “Rouge” is a reminder of Detroit’s history of Black protest with its chants of “No justice no peace.” Waajeed’s jazz-imbued house fuses two of the city’s favored genres together in a salute to Black political agency and pleasure.
