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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

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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
Play
Records
Feel
Roles
Scratch
Feels
Loved
Scratches
Years
Sort
Bringing
Really
Since
Fell
Good
Happens
Played
Like
America
Dance
Music
Role

More quotes by A-Trak

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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
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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.
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I love disco and we sample it a lot for Duck Sauce. For me, that sound is kind of a new manifestation.
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I'm still a hip-hop producer. I never put a label on what I can do as a producer or a DJ.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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There are producers that have been my friends for many years that I'm still a big fan of, from Boyz Noize to solo acts. Justice. It really varies. All the way to like...sometimes I'll just find some dude out of Chicago that makes a great house song. I'm feeling a lot of the deep house stuff, Jamie Jones.
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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
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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
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When I get up I still check the rap blogs before I check any kind of dance stuff.
A-Trak
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I think one of the biggest things that's changed in terms of the rapport with the crowd is that now crowds come to hear our songs. We're getting closer and closer to an artist performance.
A-Trak
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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
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The essential component of being a DJ is setting the mood it's playing to the context. So that if you're not able to adapt from one context to another, then you're not a DJ.
A-Trak
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It's always important to me to play something other DJs aren't playing.
A-Trak
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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
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There's a lot of producers that are much more technical or gear-skilled than I am. But I have a pure idea of what I like and where I want to go and I follow that.
A-Trak
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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
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It's a good feeling to have something to stand for in any part of your life. It's like personal integrity.
A-Trak
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That's what a DJ is at the end of the day - someone who leads where the music goes. The only thing that's changed is that in America, people have woken up in the last few years and realized it.
A-Trak