Photo: Monty Luke
Tucked away in a quiet corner of the Royal Albert Hall’s Rausing Circle sits the Elgar Room, walls proudly hung with black and white portraits of the myriad American icons to have passed through the building on their way to immortality: Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Nina Simone… As the larger-than-life DJ Carl Craig strolls in to join me and Chineke! founder Chi-chi Nwanoku – with whom he will be performing next month in the main auditorium – I am struck by the sense that it won’t be long until his own portrait hangs on these walls.
Craig, who has released numerous dance-floor classics and remixes under a variety of guises, made his name in the early 90s as part of the second generation of Detroit techno masters. He has since had an incalculable impact on the genre. Although as a teenager he played double bass in his school orchestra (“badly” – he tells me), Craig developed an early passion for techno. The double bass was soon dropped in favour of a synthesiser, and it wasn’t long before Craig had amassed a major following in the UK as well as in the States.
Read the full interview on Bachtrack