42°19′ N   83°02′ WINDEPENDENT CITY GUIDE · HU / ENDETROIT + MICHIGAN
QUARTER
DETROIT
Menu

Events

Eat & drink

Things to do

Plan

Stay

For hotels

Shows & music

Getting around

Your license in MichiganRental carsSpeed limitsMiles, gallons, MPGThe Michigan left and the rulesSchool busesTraffic lights, a Detroit inventionPulled over by policeDrinking and drivingWinter drivingWildlife on the roadGas and parking

People & community

About usFor venues

← Famous Detroiters

Music

Robert Hood

born 1965American · techno producer, DJ

Detroit-born founding member of Underground Resistance who went on to invent the stripped-down sound of minimal techno.

Portrait of Robert Hood
Photo: Ventolin · CC BY-SA 3.0
Born

Detroit, Michigan
Also known as
Floorplan · Minister of Information
Detroit years
1965–1992, later ties
Field
Music

01 / The Detroit story

The Detroit story

Robert Hood was born in Detroit and first worked alongside “Mad” Mike Banks as Robert Noise, designing artwork for the house collective Members of the House. When Banks and Jeff Mills launched Underground Resistance around 1990, Hood joined as its “Minister of Information”, writing and producing much of the collective's early, militant output; the three also recorded as X-101 and X-102. In 1992 he left Detroit and UR with Mills, recording with him as H&M and X-103 for labels such as Berlin's Tresor. In 1994 he founded the M-Plant label and released Minimal Nation, a spare, repetitive album widely seen as the blueprint of minimal techno. Later he turned toward gospel-infused house under the name Floorplan, starting with “We Magnify His Name”; since 2016 the project has included his daughter Lyric Hood. His career shows how a Detroit sound shaped by Motor City austerity became a global club language.

Highlights

  1. Founding member of Underground Resistance, the “Minister of Information”.
  2. Founded the M-Plant label in 1994.
  3. Minimal Nation (1994) is considered the inspiration for minimal techno.
  4. Recorded with Jeff Mills as H&M and X-103.
  5. His gospel-house project Floorplan now includes daughter Lyric Hood.