33/45?: Carl Craig's cross-scene connections

For months, two South London DJs had been playing a Detroit music producer’s track at the wrong speed - 45rpm instead of 33rpm. Somehow, it was working. The question was: would he see it as innovation or disrespect?

It’s 1992 in Detroit. Carl Craig’s made his name with ethereal techno, but he’s restless. He wants to try something different.

So he creates “Bug in the Bassbin” - a jazz-breakbeat hybrid, deeply unusual for anyone working with grid-based electronic production.

European DJs like Gilles Peterson and Laurent Garnier pick up on it. Not surprising—they’re known for pulling from all over the map.

But then two jungle DJs - Fabio and Grooverider - start playing it at their Rage parties. Except they play the vinyl at 45rpm instead of 33. Jazz drums become 160bpm breakbeats. The double bass goes somewhere else entirely.

Fabio’s nervous. Have they undermined the work? Disrespected this Detroit auteur they admire?

Turned out Carl Craig loved it.

Jazz becomes techno becomes jungle - all through one track.

A few years later, the track is re-released with remixes at multiple tempos. By then, scenes that had been fluid in the early rave days had hardened into distinct identities—techno, house, drum and bass, each with their own nights, their own tribes.

But “Bug in the Bassbin” kept crossing those lines. By the mid-90s, you’d see Masters at Work, Roni Size, Carl Craig, LTJ Bukem on the same bills. Detroit, London, NY, Bristol. The track helped build bridges between scenes that had separated.

Three moves made this happen.

First, Carl Craig made the thing - going outside his genre, pulling different influences, taking a risk.

Second, Fabio and Grooverider stayed open to a track well outside their lane. They sensed it might work at 45 and had the guts to play it out live.

Third, Carl Craig embraced it. Would’ve been easier to dismiss it, be upset, claim misuse.

This isn’t just for DJs.

You can take an idea, a framework, a story from one context and transform it for another. Change the format. Change the framing. Apply it to your industry. Remix it for a different audience.

This is a skill. Fabio and Grooverider didn’t just reshare the track—they transformed it by changing the speed. That takes an ear for what could work, and the confidence to test it out.

Most of us aren’t making things from scratch. We’re finding, reshaping, recontextualizing. Build that instinct. Look for things that might work at a different speed.

And if someone does it to your work? Maybe that’s the highest compliment. You’ll might meet people and ideas you never thought of.

P.S. Laurent Garnier once described Carl Craig as being able to ‘make synthesizers cry’. The magic of humans and machines. True in ’92, true today.