A tour through Detroit with Carl Craig

“Recharge with soul”

I had the good fortune to drive around Detroit with Carl Craig for a day in early 2008 for an assignment by Thomas Venker taking photos. It was February in Detroit, so cold, bleak and grey. I was curious to see the state of Detroit. I had gone to university in Windsor Canada, directly across the river 10 years prior and one of the only redeeming things to that experience was Detroit. But its no secret that the city has seen brighter days and I was expecting to find further rot. But that wasn’t the case, instead I found a vibrant post industrial creative community. Good stuff.

Carl Craig: “I see these buildings every day. For me they represent the history of Detroit, the history of a place once a blooming industrial city – and now no longer is. Such ruins are monoliths, but to me they mean the same as the debris in Rome or Greece: it is all about the process of remembering of what has been a culture. Those fabrics tell us from their former greatness – and now they are just framework.
No other city on this planet is like Detroit. It was here where Henry Ford invented the assembly line – and where Berry Gordy took the concept and came up with Motown from there. Gordy wanted to produce and publish music in an ongoing process, just to have enough to offer for the demand out there. And once the car industry changed over from humans to robots, that affected Juan Atkins. You see, both were inspired by the system of Ford. I deeply believe that there is no other place on this planet as Detroit this all could arise. I talk bout the idea to recharge something that cold with soul.”