Updated July 6, 2026 at 5:02 AM MDT
It seems like every Detroiter has a Motown origin story.
For Jamon Jordan, that story starts in his family living room, where his mother had an extensive stereo system and a sprawling collection of vinyls. The stereo was off limits for him and his brother, but their mother bought them their own kid-friendly record player, a small white one with a red tonearm.
"We had the 45 of [The] Jackson Five, 'I Want You Back.' And then on the other 45 was 'Rockin' Robin,'" Jordan recalled. "I just feel like Motown has always been with me."
Today, Jordan is the official historian for the city of Detroit. He said that Motown Records — the groundbreaking label founded in 1959 by a 29-year-old Berry Gordy — has become so ingrained into the fabric of the city, that you can't really untangle the two.
"Motown has become for Detroit what whole industries have become for other cities. Like when we think of Milwaukee of course we think of beer," Jordan said. "Pittsburgh and steel. Or Houston and oil, you know. But Detroit — it's not just Detroit and music. It's Detroit and Motown."
The name "Motown" — a portmanteau of Motor Town and an homage to the city's homegrown and once dominant auto industry — quickly became a nickname for the city itself.
But when Detroit native Suzanne Smith started writing a book about Motown, she discovered that some people had no idea the label started there.
"They didn't know that it was "Motor Town." And that's, to me, revealing," said Smith, author of the book Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit.
It's one of many contradictions at the heart of the Motown story: Motown is both quintessentially American and deeply rooted in one specific city. It was a cultural force that unified people across racial lines, and also a distinct product of Black artistry and entrepreneurship.
And today, Detroiters still claim the label as a deep source of pride and identity — even though the company left the city for Los Angeles more than 50 years ago.
"It belonged to us"
Jordan said that growing up in Detroit, "we all knew someone — or knew someone who knew someone — who had something to do with Motown." And while the label was, first and foremost, a business, Jordan said it also felt like a family.
Smokey Robinson and Diana Ross lived on the same block in the North End of Detroit. Ross' fellow members of The Supremes were also raised in the city. Martha Reeves of The Vandellas was a Detroit native who went on to serve as a city councilwoman.
"[That] helped create this feeling that it belonged to us. It belonged to Detroit," he said. "When Motown leaves in '72, people feel like they were abandoned."
Another reason for Motown's deep connection to Detroit is that the label incorporated elements of the city's other most famous export: the auto industry. Berry Gordy had worked on a Ford assembly line, and while on the job would write songs in his head to break up the monotony of a shift with the machinery of the plant keeping time.
Smith said Gordy brought that assembly line mindset into his recording studio.
"There would be certain pieces of songs that [the Motown studio band] would just insert in different records … the way in which you'd put a bolt on an axle of a car," Smith said. "In a couple of the songs, they would shake car chains in the studio to create a percussion sound."
There were also historical factors that helped make a label like Motown possible: Hundreds of thousands of African Americans moved to Detroit in the early-to-mid 20th century as part of the Great Migration.
That spurred the growth of Black neighborhoods like Black Bottom, and vibrant entertainment districts like Paradise Valley. Local clubs like the Flame Show Bar showcased talented swing, blues and jazz musicians.
Jordan said all of that paved the way for Motown's success, even as those neighborhoods and districts were later lost to federal urban renewal projects.
Marion Hayden is a Detroit native and renowned jazz musician. She said you can hear the jazz roots in classic Motown recordings.
Hayden said the Motown session musicians, some of whom became her friends and peers, "had that special thing that jazz musicians do, which is to be able to improvise and provide something that is perfect for the moment. That's what Motown captured."
That improvisation helped create and define the "Motown sound." For example, Motown musicians took a riff from an early 1960's jazz standard called Canadian Sunset and turned it into the introductory bassline of Mary Wells' "My Guy."
As a working musician today, Hayden said Motown's lasting importance in the city is apparent: "If you're at a party and someone says, play 'Dancing in the Street,' they don't expect you to go look in your folder and find a piece of music. You should know that."
Race, civil rights and "the reality of crossover"
Motown was not the first Black-owned record label in America — jazz and blues labels like Black Swan and Sunshine Records had launched decades earlier.
But Motown, Jamon Jordan said, was "the first Black-owned record company that forces everybody to listen."
"Not just Black folks, not just white folks, but everybody has to pay attention to what Motown is doing," Jordan said. "Everybody adjusts themselves to Motown."
While Gordy began primarily pitching his artists to rhythm and blues radio stations and Black consumers, Smith said he realized Motown could have broad crossover appeal after the success of The Miracles' "Shop Around" in 1960. The label was soon topping the Billboard charts and getting play on white-owned "pop" radio stations. The Beatles covered Motown hits on their early records.
But Motown's crossover success came against the turbulent backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement. In the south, Motown acts were playing segregated music venues. Jordan notes that the label did not put photos of artists on their early records, for fear that they'd be labeled "race music" and put in the back of stores. Racial tensions in Detroit came to a head in the summer of 1967, when a police raid on an unlicensed bar sparked five days of unrest. The subsequent violence left more than 40 people dead, mostly at the hands of law enforcement. It was a stark reminder that crossover appeal had limits.
"White people like listening to this music. They liked that it made them feel good. But they sure as heck didn't want to have black people move next door," Smith said.
Gordy himself became involved in the Civil Rights Movement, creating a spoken-word record label within the Motown family that released recordings of several of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches, including the "I Have A Dream" speech.
Smith also notes that the existence of Motown — as a product of Black artists and business executives in a city with a complicated history of race relations — was in itself political.
"When I decided to research Motown, I was frustrated that the only reason people thought Motown music was historic was because white people liked it," Smith said. "Like, who gives a s*** — excuse me — what the white people think about this music. You know, let's think about what this music and this company meant to the Black people who produced it."
Politics expands Motown's reach
Even as Gordy became involved in the push for civil rights, he pressed his artists to avoid politics in their music.
The anti-Vietnam War anthem "War" was originally written for and recorded by The Temptations. But Gordy did not let them release it as a single in fear of alienating their crossover audience, instead giving the single to Edwin Starr.
When Marvin Gaye began writing his 1971 album What's Going On, addressing the struggle for civil rights, the war in Vietnam and environmental issues, Jordan said Gordy was "determined not to let that ever get recorded."
"Other producers at Motown record [those songs] secretly and sell some of them," Jordan said. "By the time Berry finds out, it's clear that these are going to be hits. And he does put it out — reluctantly. It becomes the largest selling album in Motown's history up to that point."
Despite Gordy's initial misgivings, such songs expanded Motown's impact far beyond its Detroit origins.
Motown's reach was on full display in 1990, when Nelson Mandela visited Detroit. It was just months after his release from prison in South Africa where he'd been held for 27 years for challenging the country's apartheid regime.
"When we were in prison we appreciated and avidly listened to the sound of Detroit — Motortown." Mandela said in remarks from Detroit's major league ballpark, Tiger Stadium.
He went on to quote the title track of Gaye's What's Going On: "Brother, brother, there's far too many of you dying."
Thunderous applause drowned out the speaker.
What does Motown mean today?
Today, Motown founder Berry Gordy is 96, and many of the label's iconic stars are in their 80s. But the label's impact on culture and the music industry can still be seen today.
Smith, also a history professor at George Mason University in Virginia, said when she plays Motown songs for her students, they often know them from a sample or a cover by a newer artist.
She also saw echoes of Motown's legacy in Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime performance.
"He's like 'Here we are, we are Puerto Rico.' And he's unabashedly saying, 'My music is from a place. And my experience in that place, and for my people, has been difficult and oppressive at times. And I'm going to assert myself and the dreams of my people through my music,'" Smith said. "I think that's connected to Motown."
Jordan said he has similar conversations with young people about Motown's impact.
"I'll say, 'Today, you are used to African American artists being popular … You guys turn on the TV and you'll see Kendrick Lamar and there'll be a million people out in the crowd listening to him. That's normal to you. But there's a time when that was not normal,'" he said. " That is largely — not totally — but largely a product of Motown Records."
NPR recently paid a visit to Cass Technical High School in Detroit. Diana Ross was a student there, as were many members of the label's studio band. Berry Gordy's sister, who had a long career helping run the label's business operations, also went to Cass.
For some of the students in teacher William Harrison's madrigal choir class, Motown was the soundtrack to early family memories.
"Growing up, I used to live with my grandmother," said 18-year-old Brian Howard. "She had this little record player that she used to play Marvin Gaye songs a lot, and we used to just dance to it. I mean, I had no idea what was happening in the songs, but I was just a kid moving around. I was just happy that my Nana was up and moving with me."
For others, Motown served as a source of hometown pride and inspiration
"When I was little … I wasn't really proud [to be from Detroit] because I didn't know about it," said Sarayah Carr, 14. " But when I grew up to learn about all the different people who came out of Motown, it was eye opening to me. … That made me think that if they can do it, I can too."
It wasn't all praise in Harrison's classroom. 15-year-old Peyton Butler said Motown was "not exactly my cup of tea." 18-year-old Anaiah Nesbitt said she used to hate when her mom played Motown music.
But even these critiques came alongside appreciation: Butler recalled her dad playing Motown music in the car. Nesbitt said she appreciates that artists like Diana Ross and the Supremes served as an inspiration for some of her favorite artists, like Beyoncé.
Student Jordan Reed said Motown provides a counternarrative to many of the "untrue things" people believe about his hometown – just as the label provided Black artists an opportunity to showcase their talents at a time when racism and segregation dominated the entertainment industry.
"Motown really showed that Black people, we could be elegant. We could have talent. We can show emotion," said Reed, 18. "We can be artists. We can be whatever we want to be."
Copyright 2026 NPR
