Raising Voices!

Unearthing untold stories

About

Unearthing Untold Stories Raising Voices! was a Detroit-based process-oriented film collective that leveraged documentary film as a means to honor the history of, create visibility for, and promote well-being for the LGBTQI community.

We deeply believe that people have the best ability to tell their own stories, and our mission was to utilize archival footage, contemporary performances, storyboards reflecting real-time politics effecting our community, and personal narratives to make the contributions of LGBTQI people accessible to greater society through media.

Work

Our D-town Sound project, which is a six-episode documentary series highlighting the experiences of LGBTQI musicians of color as they navigate the Detroit music scene—an axis of music innovation that has brought the world Motown, Techno, and Hardcore Punk. In each episode we followed a different LGBTQI musician of color, from Detroit, unearthing their story in settings that are intimate to their lives. In the story arc we examined the personal, creative, and political inspirations behind their work, by asking the interviewee, “what compels you to create music?”. The influence of LGBTQI people of color, from Detroit in particular, on the global music scene has been critically under-recognized and under-documented. By exploring this, through film, we allow the audience to develop a more comprehensive perspective on the lives LGBTQI musicians of color from Detroit correcting the record through documentary style storytelling filled with laughter and angst.