Music
Carl Craig
born 1969 · electronic music producer, DJ, label founder
Detroit techno's leading second-wave producer, founder of Planet E Communications and co-creator of the Detroit Electronic Music Festival in Hart Plaza.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 57- Also known as
- Psyche · BFC · Innerzone Orchestra · 69
- Detroit years
- 1969–
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Carl Craig was born in Detroit in 1969. He learned guitar, then got hooked on club music through a cousin who ran lights for Detroit-area parties, and he came up in the wake of techno's founders Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. By the early 1990s he was recording under a string of aliases and running his own label, Planet E Communications, becoming the central figure of Detroit techno's second generation. Tracks such as “Bug in the Bassbin” helped inspire British drum and bass, and his remixes and collaborations reached from Depeche Mode to Moritz von Oswald. In 2000 he co-created the Detroit Electronic Music Festival in Hart Plaza and served as its artistic director; his dismissal after 2001 sparked a protest campaign, and he returned to the role in 2010. He has also carried Detroit techno into art spaces, including a 2021 sound-and-light installation for Bottega Veneta inside the Michigan Building's ruined theater, and he championed a memorial plaque for J Dilla.
Highlights
- Founded the Planet E Communications label
- Co-creator and artistic director of the Detroit Electronic Music Festival (2000–2001, 2010)
- Grammy nomination for his remix of Junior Boys' “Like a Child”
- Recomposed (2008) with Moritz von Oswald
- 2021 installation Runway in the Michigan Building Theater
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 2000–2001, 2010
African World Festival
Riverfront plaza that hosts the Detroit Electronic Music Festival (today's Movement), which he co-created and directed artistically.
Related place · 2021
220 Bagley Night Club
Closed · 1926–1976
The gutted 1926 movie palace, now a parking garage, where he created the multi-floor sound-and-light work Runway for Bottega Veneta in 2021.