Juan Atkins, the Detroit producer and DJ widely regarded as a founder of techno, has died at 64. His agency, Greensmith Artists, announced his death on Instagram on Sunday (Nov. 1), per Billboard and Pitchfork.
Resident Advisor reported, as relayed by Billboard and Rolling Stone, that Atkins was found unresponsive in his hotel room in Mexico City on Saturday (Oct. 31), ahead of a scheduled performance at YuYu Cine Club. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead soon after he arrived. No cause of death has been shared, The FADER notes. Greensmith founder Dragan Greensmith asked for privacy.
His family is currently dealing with extremely difficult circumstances, and we kindly ask that their privacy be respected during this time
Dragan Greensmith, to Billboard, Billboard
Born in Detroit in 1962 and raised in Belleville, Michigan, Atkins met Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson at school, and the three became known as the Belleville Three, architects of Detroit techno. He bought his first synthesizer, a Korg MS-10, at 15. With Rik Davis he formed Cybotron, whose 1983 single “Clear” became a genre-defining electro track. Billboard says it reached No. 52 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and ranks No. 77 on its list of the 100 best dance songs of all time. Missy Elliott sampled it on “Lose Control.”
ClearCybotronListen on Apple Music
In 1985 he started the Metroplex label and began recording as Model 500. Its first single, “No UFO’s,” is credited with carrying Detroit techno across the Atlantic, where it helped inspire the 1988 compilation Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit. He kept working under other names too, including Infiniti and, with Moritz von Oswald, Borderland, and toured with May and Saunderson through the 2010s. Rolling Stone wrote last year, when it put “No UFO’s” on its list of the greatest dance songs, that “Juan Atkins invented techno, full stop.”
No UFO’sModel 500Listen on Apple Music
Saunderson, his Belleville bandmate, led the tributes on Instagram.
Juan was the originator of Techno, a true visionary who opened the door for so many of us, myself included. I’ll never forget how he showed me how to finish my first record, Triangle of Love. That meant a lot to me then, and it still does today.
Kevin Saunderson, on his Instagram Story, Billboard
Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield said that “as a teenager with a synthesizer and a big idea, he imagined what the music of the future could be. Then he built it.” She added that he opened doors for generations of Detroit artists and that “Detroit will honor his memory, and his music will keep moving us forward.”
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For the electronic and rave scenes his music helped build, see our recent reports on Bicep’s first album since 2021 and France’s free-party crackdown.
He kept playing until the end. Pitchfork notes that in his last two years he played clubs from New York to Berlin and main stages at Detroit’s Movement, Amsterdam’s Dekmantel and England’s Houghton, and The FADER says he played ADE in Amsterdam on Oct. 23. He recently told The Guardian that his work was about more than the dancefloor: “I feel like artists have an obligation to say something meaningful.”
- Died
- Died Oct. 31, 2026, in Mexico City, per Resident Advisor via Billboard; announced Nov. 1 by Greensmith Artists
- Groups and aliases
- Cybotron, Model 500, Infiniti, Borderland, the Belleville Three
- Label
- Metroplex, founded 1985
- Best-known records
- “Clear” (Cybotron, 1983); “No UFO’s” (Model 500, 1985)
Added to the High Grailed archive on November 10, 2026.
