Sherard Ingram has been the steady DJ in Detroit electro and techno since the late 1990s. The DJ Stingray work is what he has done in the years since Drexciya stopped touring after James Stinson's death in 2002.
Ingram grew up in Detroit and was Drexciya's tour DJ in the project's late period. The brief, then, was already to play fast: 145 to 160 BPM electro selected from a catalog that did not yet exist outside of Stinson and Gerald Donald's records and a small ring of Detroit-adjacent electro. The balaclava was the Drexciya stage convention, and Ingram has kept it for solo work. The mask reads now as both a tribute and a function — it keeps the focus on the records.
Solo work as DJ Stingray began before Stinson's death and intensified after it. The release schedule has run on Tresor in Berlin, Micron Audio, WeMe Records, and his own outputs. The "Sextant" album landed on Tresor in 2024 and is the most recent full-length under the name. Solo twelve-inches and EPs continue at a steady pace.
Urban Tribe is the long-running collective project. Ingram is the constant; Carl Craig, Anthony Shakir, and Kenny Dixon Jr. have been involved at different points. The catalog is small but cited regularly as the bridge between the Detroit electro and Detroit deep house traditions. The records sit somewhere neither genre fully claims.
The DJ work is the day job. Ingram plays Berghain, Tresor, Awakenings, Sónar, and the Movement weekend with the regularity of an artist whose schedule is the schedule. He is one of the names Paxahau treats as a fixture. The format is consistent in every room: balaclava, three turntables, opening BPM around 145, no banter, ninety minutes.
What separates the Stingray work is the BPM and the precision. Most modern techno DJs cap out at 130 to 140 BPM. Stingray plays consistently above that, mixes cleanly at the higher tempos, and works selections that are mostly electro and Detroit-adjacent rather than four-on-the-floor techno. The selection itself is the argument.
He has stayed in Detroit. Submerge — Mike Banks's distribution and label hub — is the center of gravity for that part of the city's electro scene, and Ingram is in that orbit. Records still go to Submerge for distribution. The Drexciya catalog he helped tour also lives there.
The next Movement edition is in May. Stingray is on the early lineup announcement.
