Welcome Back to ‘Crimetown’
We hope for better things; it shall arise from the ashes.
— Official motto of the City of Detroit
Welcome to Detroit—once one of the most prosperous cities in the country, now synonymous with American decline. But there’s much more to the city than that. From its heyday as the Motor City to its current rebirth as the Brooklyn of the Midwest, Detroit’s history reflects a series of thorny issues at the heart of American identity: race, poverty, policing, deindustrialization, the war on drugs, and the universal desire for a savior. It’s a tough town, and its residents are even tougher. They have weathered riots, the crack epidemic, and innumerable other hardships, but they’re still here—and they have plenty of stories to tell. Welcome to Detroit, and welcome back to Crimetown, returning Monday, October 1 exclusively on Spotify.
To fully understand crime and corruption in America’s heartland capital, we went back to where it started. Season two of Crimetown begins in 1971, with the creation of a controversial police unit known as STRESS (“Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets”). In less than three years, STRESS officers shot and killed 21 people—all but one of them black men. Over the course of 20 episodes, Marc Smerling and Zac Stuart-Pontier, the creators and executive producers of HBO’s The Jinx, weave together a series of interlocking stories about the drug trade, public corruption, and murder. The season concludes more than thirty years later, with the fall of a once-promising mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick. Although it spans decades, Crimetown season two feels eerily contemporary.
Crimetown, from Gimlet Media premieres on Monday, October 1 with new episodes premiering weekly every Monday to all users on Spotify. Crimetown Season 2’s exclusivity on Spotify represents the streaming service’s ongoing commitment to further develop its podcast roster and provide premium audio content for its users. Season one of Crimetown is available now on Spotify. Can’t get enough of the series? Fans can follow the show page to get updates on new episodes.