Underground Music Academy took over the Detroit Stage at Movement 2025 on Sunday. It was UMA's first festival showcase.
UMA is Waajeed's Detroit institution, founded in 2020 to train the next generation of producers and DJs with direct mentorship from scene veterans. The 2024 debut cohort included DJ I.V., DJ SPHiNX, Disc Jockey George, and JMT. Blackmoonchild, Ember LaFíamma, and Shawescape Renegade rounded out the Sunday lineup. Most of them were playing their first Movement set.
The Detroit Stage takeover was the clearest institutional statement Movement has made about the scene's future in years. UMA is not a vanity project. It is a structured program that trains people in techno and house production with an explicit mission to keep the knowledge inside Detroit. Putting the 2024 cohort on a festival stage the first chance the programming allowed was the right move.
ELEMENTS is UMA's newer program, running its next cohort from November 22 to December 13, 2025, in partnership with Resident Advisor. The curriculum covers production fundamentals and industry navigation. The stated goal is the same as UMA's original goal, which is that Detroit keeps producing its own producers.
UMA is online at uma-detroit.bandcamp.com. Waajeed's label is Dirt Tech Reck.
