If you watched the Grammy awards on Sunday, then you saw the robotic duo Daft Punk in its first televised performance ever, with Kanye West. West comes out and does his thing in front of a large pyramid, which later lights up with neon piping and splits open to reveal Daft Punk in Tron-inspired versions of their robot suits playing a touch-screen mega sampler/computer/synthesizer. Click through for pics and video.
While Daft Punk has been popular in the techno and French house music scenes since the 1990s, they've won over a whole generation of hip-hop fans since West included a sample of their 2001 song "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" in his song "Stronger", which won a Grammy for Best Solo Rap Performance on Sunday night.
What's most impressive about Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo is their devotion to the robotic personas that hide their identities. Though they used to perform as themselves when they first came onto the scene, the duo began appearing as their robot counterparts with the release of their Discovery album. Now they hide their faces during interviews and digitally conceal themselves in photographs.
We did not choose to become robots. There was an accident in our studio. We were working on our sampler, and at exactly 9:09 a.m. on September 9, 1999, it exploded. When we regained consciousness, we discovered that we had become robots.
That kind of dedication to your fake robot alter-ego inner techno musician is the kind of thing we like to see. Once you mash it up with Tron, you're given us a geekgasm. Check out the video below to see some posthuman music, without the Master Control Program.