German DJ and producer Danilo Plessow chose the name Motor City Drum Ensemble in tribute to the music of Detroit as well as his home city of Stuttgart. Producing disco-house tracks inspired by the likes of Moodymann and Theo Parrish, he made a major impact on the club world during the late 2000s with a series of self-released singles, gathered on the Raw Cuts, Vol. 1 compilation. He also became renowned for his ambitious, genre-spanning mixes, including volumes of the DJ-Kicks (2011) and Fabric Presents (2021) series. Also prolific as a remixer, he has reconstructed tracks by Tony Allen, Caribou, DJ Sprinkles, and others.

Before establishing his most well-known moniker, Plessow released several records with Joachim Tobias as part of the jazzy broken beat duo Inverse Cinematics. He launched Motor City Drum Ensemble in 2007 with singles for Compost and Four Roses which mixed tech-house with funk and Afrobeat influences. Starting in 2008, he released a trio of more stripped-down Raw Cuts singles on his own MCDE label. These were compiled along with additional material (including a single under his Jayson Brothers alias) on the acclaimed 2009 compilation Raw Cuts, Vol. 1. His first commercially issued mix was a 2011 DJ-Kicks set, which included selections by Sun Ra and Tony Allen as well as house and techno producers like Mr. Fingers, Recloose, and Robert Hood. Additional singles followed, while Plessow and Marcus Worgull formed the ambient duo Vermont, releasing two full-lengths on Kompakt. Plessow compiled Selectors 001, an unmixed collection of house and disco rarities, for Dekmantel in 2016. He continued spinning at dance festivals and clubs throughout the world, and his second officially released mix, Fabric Presents Danilow Plessow (MCDE), arrived in 2021. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi