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I worked with him for years. I still think Kanye [West] is one of the most important people in music in the last ten years.
A-Trak
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A-Trak
Age: 42
Born: 1982
Born: March 30
Composer
Disc Jockey
Dj
Entrepreneur
Musician
Record Producer
Recording Artist
Singer
Montreal
Quebec
Alain Macklovitch
Important
Ten
Years
West
Worked
Think
Lasts
Thinking
Last
People
Stills
Still
Music
More quotes by A-Trak
When you know what you like and what you want and you're able to nudge things in the right direction, that's more profitable than ever, because there's so much information out there. Everything's saturated. Tastemaker is probably the most overused word, but I still think it's important.
A-Trak
I was a bit of an outsider in the hip-hop world because I was a scratch kid and people weren't necessarily trying to hear that all the time.
A-Trak
I'm still a hip-hop producer. I never put a label on what I can do as a producer or a DJ.
A-Trak
What's amazing about a DJ set is when you're able to re-appropriate a song or give purpose to a song that people didn't really think it was supposed to have. Give it this sort of hidden power by playing it before this song and after that one. That it fits into this logic and it goes farther than you thought it could go.
A-Trak
It's a good feeling to have something to stand for in any part of your life. It's like personal integrity.
A-Trak
A few guys will get up there with turntables as purists, to play vinyl or whatever.
A-Trak
We have to wake up early and make songs everyday. I run my record label. You work at hours where your body isn't designed to work. But it's fun.
A-Trak
I love disco and we sample it a lot for Duck Sauce. For me, that sound is kind of a new manifestation.
A-Trak
I've been doing it since I was prepubescent when I loved to scratch records and play good music. As it happens, you know I sort of fell into the mix. I really feel like I played a role in bringing dance music to America years ago.
A-Trak
Building the scene, going out and doing shows and connecting with the fans, cultivating the fanbase in all these cities. I'm very glad that it's happening.
A-Trak
I think whether dance music had exploded in America, I still would've been a DJ a long time. This is my first love.
A-Trak
There's a ton of amazing music that's not getting heard.
A-Trak
That was my challenge then, how to make scratching still fun for someone who didn't necessarily come to hear that. It was fun to develop that technique. And now in dance music - I'm still a hip-hop guy at heart, but I love dance music.
A-Trak
Now I'm able to play on the main stage and play my own tracks and the crowd likes them. I feel like a lot the other DJs play a lot of the same songs, and not to knock them, but it's important to me to go up there and sort of sneak in a bunch of stuff the other guys aren't playing.
A-Trak
At the end of the day, Fool's Gold is a label that, when I hear something I like, I try to grab it for the label. There's a ton of great music coming out.
A-Trak
At festivals you kind of have to play the game a bit and you have to play a lot of the big bangers but it's to me it's extra gratifying to be able to play the non-bangers and make it work. Because that's still the craft of the DJ, I think.
A-Trak
I think that's becoming the key to where the whole idea of art and culture are going nowadays anyway, is the idea of curation. Knowing what you like. That's sort of the future right now. Molding something, whether it be a roster on a label, or your blog, or a song, or your DJ set.
A-Trak
One thing that I learned in recent years from working more with other people is this idea that part of a producer's job is to make people comfortable and confident.
A-Trak
I'm not even a trained producer. I just keep following my ear and working on stuff until it sounds the way I like it.
A-Trak
I've talked to people who say that their music and their creative work is a much needed and appreciated escape, where they don't have to think about the state of the world they're not even thinking about themselves so much. They're not trying to express their own experiences of that day or relationship strife or anything.
A-Trak