Death in Mexico City

Greensmith Artists, the musician's agency, told Resident Advisor that Atkins was discovered unresponsive in his Mexico City hotel room ahead of a scheduled performance there. He was taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

From Cybotron to Model 500

His electronic career began with the duo Cybotron and continued under the alias Model 500, and he is credited as the first person to attach the word techno to this hard electronic style.

• •While still in high school he started Cybotron with Richard Davis, working with hardware that had become increasingly affordable, among it the Roland TR-808 drum machine and the Korg MS-10 synthesiser.
• •Cybotron tracks including Cosmic Cars and Clear became dancefloor staples; the duo split in 1985 as Davis was drawn more towards rock music.
• •As Model 500 he made tracks including No UFO's and The Chase.
• •In 1985 he also founded his own record label, Metroplex, to release his work; it later released music by Anthony Shakir and DJ Bone.

The Belleville Three

Atkins was born in Detroit in 1962; his family later moved to Belleville, a rural Michigan suburb. There, in junior high school, he fell in with Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson - the trio that would become known as the Belleville Three.

Influence and tributes

Atkins kept working across decades. He further finessed his sound with the uptempo project Infiniti later in the 1990s, and in the 2000s he formed the duo Borderland with Moritz Von Oswald, releasing two albums in 2013 and 2016.

His reach extended beyond techno: Missy Elliott made Clear the backbone of her track Lose Control, which reached No 3 on the US Billboard chart in 2005.

Kevin Saunderson paid tribute, calling Atkins "a true visionary who opened the door for so many of us, myself included".

In 2023, Atkins reformed Cybotron, releasing new music and performing live. His death was confirmed by Greensmith Artists.