A-Trak feature - Published in Serie B Magazine, 2006

This feature follows up from the original interview I did with A-Trak in 2004, ahead of his becoming Kanye West’s tour DJ. A full length version of the original interview, and this feature are available online at spinscience.org.uk.

——————————————————————

Homeboy got that crack!

Sitting in a studio in a flat somewhere in New York with Hell Rell from the Dipset exclaiming ‘that’s that crack!’ when hearing a beat isn’t the type of setting where you think you’d find a world renowned turntablist and young producer, responsible for said beat. The beat in question was for a track, ‘Don’t Fool with The Dips’, that became one of the big surprise of 2005 in some music circles – a track featuring 3 young members of the Dipset collective rhyming over a production made mainly from turntables isn’t exactly run of the mill after all. But then again at just 24 years of age the man responsible for this, A-Trak, isn’t your average turntablist, DJ or producer. In the last 2 years he has made a habit of breaking norms and surprising followers of his early days as a turntable prodigy and battle DJ champion, as well as surprising a fair amount of people out of scratch circles since becoming Kanye West’s tour DJ. So how exactly did this Canadian boy, who still hasn’t finished his university studies, get to go on the road with Kanye for the last 2 years, have the Dipset rhyme on his track, end up doing cuts for Common’s lauded ‘Be’ album and more importantly achieve what most turntablists haven’t managed to by linking the underground, and inward looking, scratch scene to the current mainstream of rap and hip hop? Whatever answer you’re thinking of is probably off by a few miles. It involves a shop in London, a routine, some guts, Dame Dash, and of course skills.

Before getting to the answer we need to go back in time a little and set the scene for those not too familiar with A-Trak’s prodigious past. In 1995, at age 13, young A-Trak used his Bar Mitzvah money to buy himself some Technics 1200 turntables and a mixer. He then proceeded to spend the majority of his time locked in his basement practicing, listening to the likes of Pete Rock, Premier and Jazzy Jeff and showing off his new scratches to his big brother Dave. Two years later and he becomes the world’s youngest DJ to win the DMC world Championships at the tender age of 15, a record he still holds. By age 18, he’s won 5 world titles across the battle scene, a feat yet to be repeated. He’s also invited to join the Invisibl Skratch Piklz crew by Q-Bert following his precocious DMC win. In 2000 he decides to retire from the battle scene – kinda like those prodigy kids you see in gymnastics who burn out by 20. But the difference being that by that point he’s not retiring to disappear into myth but to concentrate on taking his music further. He joins the Allies crew, alongside Craze and others, to tour, showcase and generally cause havoc on turntables and dancefloors worldwide. They release an EP in the early 2000s on the legendary Asphodel label, and continue to do well both in the studio and in clubs worldwide until 2003/4 when all the various members move on to other projects. By then A-Trak is co-running the Audio Research label with his brother Dave One, regularly releasing his, and fellow Allies’, break records, producing for Canadian rap crew Obscure Disorder, releasing remixes and various other tracks on his and other labels, and quite surprisingly he also manages to slot in a part time degree at a university in his home town of Montreal. Keeping busy was definitely the word.

It’s at this point, in early 04, that our Canadian wonder flies into London for a gig and things take a turn for the unexpected. It’s also at that exact same point that I meet A-Trak for the first time, at an in-store in Deal Real just off London’s Carnaby Street. I’m there to interview him about his recent and new projects for my radio show and website. I hook up with him and the promoter of the night he’s playing at. The in-store proceeds nicely – ironically that same in-store was also the ‘women only’ open mic night (which A-Trak ‘doesn’t take personally’ in hindsight) and had Lady Sovereign, then still a fairly unknown and upcoming MC, promoting her forthcoming new single (a single that would a year later launch her on the road to some weird fast forwarded stardom and signing to Jay-Z’s Def Jam label, go figure). In addition to Lady Sovereign, the in-store also featured an appearance by Samantha Ronson, then a newly signed act to Dame Dash’s latest label venture. Dash enters the shop as A-Trak finishes his showcase and chaos ensues – as we leave, A-Trak swaps details with Dash’s entourage. Our interview goes well, and the night he was playing at does too. The following day, the guys from the Deal Real shop, who saw him at the club, ask him to come back for another showcase…

‘So the guys from Deal Real asked me to come back the next day because John Legend was coming in for an in store and they were like ‘Kanye might show up’. And they had seen my routine with one of Kanye’s records the night before. So I went back, did another showcase and Kanye saw me do my routine with his record. But then what happened was right as I finished my routine, Mos Def walked into the shop and so it got really hectic with Kanye and Mos freestyling for half an hour. As it got really hectic I didn’t really get a chance to talk to him or anything, but we just shook hands and I could tell that he liked the routine. After that thanks to Dame Dash’s people who I’d kept in touch with since meeting them at the first in store, I was able to locate Kanye again. He was doing a press conference the next day, which was the day I was leaving, with my plane being literally a few hours later. But I thought it was worth it me just trying my luck so I went to the press conference and basically tracked him down.
‘I got hold of him, told him I was the guy who had done the routine and he was like ‘yeah A-Trak I remember you’, and he just asked me about myself and what I did. He was very interested, and a few of the people around him knew about me too, so they told him I’d won the DMCs and it was really good. So just right there and then he asked me to come on the road with him for the Usher tour, which was just being prepared at that point, as he didn’t have a DJ for it. So I starting working with him for the Usher tour and I’ve been with him ever since really.’

So with some luck, skills and balls A-Trak became tour DJ for a double-platinum selling mainstream rap act (soon to become one of the biggest rap acts in the world), a pretty mean feat for a young Canadian turntablist who was then hardly known outside of scratch circles. A-Trak had become this rare instance of a turntablist who had moved to the mainstream from the underground in one fell swoop – a bit like when Mixmaster Mike hooked up with the Beastie Boys. 2 years later and I’ve managed to grab a hold of him again, as he passes through London for Kanye’s ‘Touch the Sky’ tour. On his only day off we sit down in an East London club to catch up, spookily nearly 2 years to the day after our first meeting, which had preceded his career changing in store at Deal Real.

It’s true that the DJ in hip hop today is a bit like a fairytale – there was a time when people who had skills actually laid cuts on records, where as now if the cuts aren’t entirely removed from the record they’re either digitally processed or dressed up. With this in mind, having someone like A-Trak backing up Kanye on stage is a nice relief from the current state of things. ‘You know how turntablism sort of became a cousin of hip hop or whatever? Well I always wanted to come back as the ambassador, come back into the rap world and being the bridge between the two. But I wouldn’t want to work with somebody I’m not a fan of and I wouldn’t want to be in a situation where I’m just pressing play every night and miming in the back. So Kanye is just the perfect artist to work with. If I could have chosen who I wanted to work with it would have been him. So the fact that it came up the way it did is perfect. When I met him he was already at least platinum going double, but now it’s on a whole other level.’

On stage, A-Trak has become an integral part of Kanye’s shows, and in the process has also been able to show mainstream audiences that scratching can be much more than what they know, or in most cases don’t know. Again the analogy with Mixmaster Mike easily comes to mind – and when we talk about the live shows in detail it turns out that they have indeed been busy in trying to bring something fresh to the stage. ‘We just did this tour in North America where we had a percussionist and keyboard player with us. With these guys we were able to get even more creative with the way we played out the set because if I wanted to do a breakdown of the song I could have them cover some parts of the music and I could come with other parts, meaning it wasn’t all on me. When it’s just me, it’s an all or nothing situation with what I do – I either really flip the beat and all its elements or I just cut on top of it. So when we had that set up it was a lot of fun because we could recreate parts of the song and really do some different stuff and then bring that to a crowd that’s never seen anything like it. It’s like a constant challenge of figuring out ways to connect with the audience. Like we had this thing with ‘All Falls Down’, where at the end of the song the band would just start playing the track and I would come in and cut parts of the chorus accappela, which is singing, and one of the backing singers would come in, imitate what I was doing and we’d go back forth. So I’d be transforming ‘Ah-ha-ha-ha Alls Falls Down’ and she would freak it a little bit and so on. And the crowd didn’t even know this was possible you know? They’d come up after and say ‘what you did with that song, how does that work?’ The reaction is always good, especially when there is that moment when you connect with people and they take a step back and pay attention to what you’re doing and want to know more.’

A-Trak’s also been able to bring his skills to the studio since becoming Kanye’s DJ. As well as doing the cuts for ‘Gold Digger’ on the ‘Late Registration’ album, he ended up doing most of the cuts for Common’s recent ‘Be’ album – giving him yet another chance to bring his own personal touch to another mainstream hip hop release. ‘The cuts for the track ‘Chi City’ happened when I was in NY for some other stuff with Kanye. I got there early and went to see him at the studio and as I walked in he was telling Common ‘let’s get A-Trak on the song’. So I ran back to get my mixer and I just had to record it right there and then. To a certain extent for what I’m preparing for my album it’s a little easier to meet certain MCs while on tour with Kanye.’
This has been one of the main perks of the job in the end. Having spent the last 2 years touring, A-Trak has been able to rack up contacts and collaborations for his own solo project, ensuring that when it does finally drop. It’ll more than likely be something to remember. Ahead of this, he’s recently finished mixing and part producing the ‘Drive Slow’ mixtape with GLC, from the G.O.O.D Music collective, giving him the chance to finally dip his toes in the mixtape game as well as show off more of his production styles.

Talk of the album first came up when we met back in 2004. Originally the album was to be released alongside his DVD documentary, however this was scrapped to avoid confusing people too much and mixing the new music and his pre-Kanye career. After all you wouldn’t want your album to fail making a big impact for the sake of releasing it alongside a retrospective DVD of your early achievements. As he explained ‘the more each project grew, each one had guests on it and its own little angle and I felt like if they both came out together they wouldn’t necessarily reach the potential they each could.’ With this in mind the album has been put back for a while, and in the meantime the DVD has finally been released. Entitled ‘Sunglasses is a Must’, it covers his career from the basement of his parents’ home to the stages he shares with Kanye. But doesn’t it feel a bit odd to be telling your life story when you’re only 24? ‘Not really because it doesn’t feel like it’s the last DVD I’ll make. I’m really at a stage in my career where I need to re-introduce myself to many people because the battles were so many years ago and now that I’m working on music there’s a whole other audience that might listen to it, so I feel that I want people to know what I’ve done so far. So it didn’t feel odd at all to be telling this story. I just wanted to make sure that it came out funny and silly as well and not too serious because you don’t want to talk about your achievements in a way that seems… pompous.’ Well pompous it isn’t, as the DVD definitely manages to capture the funnier side of a life that has been anything but average, and show that while child prodigies can end up in some pretty awful situations it would seem that being precocious on the turntables doesn’t equate drug-fuelled-burn-out by age 20. What’s more the DVD features some pretty funny footage of Tony Prince making an ass of himself, something which you can never see enough of.

Going back to the album, there are plenty of surprises on there to keep people hooked till it drops. The first, and so far biggest, one was the aforementioned Dipset collaboration, which was leaked on the net shortly after it was finished. It then proceeded to create the kind of excitement DJ circles haven’t seen in a long time. The coming together of such disparate artists really was the last thing most expected. Yet it works well and shows that it can be done. During our first interview A-Trak mentioned his intention to work on music that would be distinctly different to what most people associate scratching, and the music made using it, with. He wanted to make people move – and it seems like he’s on the right path. The collaboration with Dipset came about from his, and his brother’s, appreciation for the collective’s work. After a few months’ hard work hunting down people who actually knew how to get a hold of various members, they settled on choosing Hell Rell, 40 Cal and Jay-R, primarily because they would be more affordable than the likes of Juelz or Cameron but also because A-Trak wanted to get ‘the younger, hungry kids who would be down to do a track with somebody they don’t really know’. Once it was all set, he flew into NY and proceeded to record the different vocals at each MC’s own studio in various parts of the city.

One thing was intriguing me though, did these guys actually know who he was, or where the beat had come from? ‘I just showed up with the beat. They knew I was Kanye’s DJ and that I had won some DJ championships type stuff. While we were just vibing, I played them some tracks that I’d scratched on just so they knew what I do, and they were like ‘whoa that’s crazy, that’s like Premo but kinda futuristic!’ They were like ‘Ohhh you’re on some Premier shit, but that shit is really fast’. That’s what they understood to it, so I didn’t even say that the beat was made the way it was - because that doesn’t compute to someone who isn’t aware of that side of using the turntables anyway. They just fed off the energy from the beat, so I was just happy for them to go on and record when they felt like that.’ This collaboration was also A-Trak’s first proper attempt at mastering, which he did on his own laptop using Pro Tools. Unsure of the result, he soon realised that he’d done better than he thought when he received emails from some of the DJs he’d sent the track to and who had played it out to great reception. He then tried it himself and realised that the result was good enough to get people moving on the dancefloor. And when was the last time anyone said that about a turntablist track?

The rest of the album is still being finished, slowly but surely. It’s changed from its original concept of being half instrumental and half vocal. It’ll still include instrumental tracks, however the vocal line up has somewhat grown and taken on a bit of a shine with the likes of Little Brother, Consequence, GLC and Lupe Fiasco all planned to appear. Add to that the possibility of MF Doom and Kanye (‘He’s down to do something, I just hope Def Jam will clear him to appear on there’) also appearing, and you’ve got what could shape up to be a revolutionary album for the scratch scene - as well as just a very promising producer’s album. The majority of it is still being produced on turntables, though he isn’t shy of using the odd programmed drum, or sequence, here and there. After all this isn’t about being a purist but about bringing forward his own vision of good music. It just happens he makes his music primarily using turntables and scratching. Oh and following his recent French tour, it’s looking like TTC will also be contributing a track – a tasty prospect for fans of either artists.

As we wind down our conversation talking about how his records for tonight’s gig are lost somewhere in between Mile End and Shoreditch in the truck that carries all the gear for Kanye’s tour, it’s apparent that A-Trak is paving his own way out of the scene that helped him become the artist he is today and towards a future that may well prove him to be that link that brings back together hip hop and its bastard offspring, scratching, in a way that has yet to be done. Regardless it’s clear that in the last 2 years he has made huge leaps towards getting where he wants to be, and in the process has managed to show that there are still many things that can be accomplished by a scratch DJ as long as you’ve got the balls to do it. Homeboy definitely got that crack, and he’s bout to make sure the rest of the world knows it too.

‘Sunglasses is a Must’ DVD is now out on Audio Research. Also out now are the ‘Drive Slow’ mixtape and ‘A-Trak live in Montreal’ mix CD. Next up on Audio Research is a 7” featuring ‘Knucklehead’ from the forthcoming album, and an unreleased Obscure Disorder track. Check www.audioresearch.net for more.

Side Box

A-Trak on D-Styles
‘It’s funny how D-Styles has silently become the leader of the scratch scene you know? I’m sure he didn’t even want to. Everywhere I go I see kids that cut really well, but they cut really like D and it’s crazy. Because I remember a few years back when I would do a show with him here or there, I could tell he was developing his own style – where he does stuff that’s just really nuanced yet that is his own style and I was wondering if people were catching up to it or not because he was doing some really crazy shit right there. And then I go and do my own thing for a few years, tour, work on my stuff and come back and everybody is scratching like him! It’s crazy.’

A-Trak on the best brand of sunglasses
‘Carrera for sure. The classic ones’

A-Trak on Grime
‘I did a show in NY with the Roll Deep guys at the Knitting Factory. It was cool. As far as Grime, there are a couple of songs that I’m really into. I don’t like everything to do with it, and I get the impression that some people who really champion Grime in the NY scene like it because it’s different rather than because they like the music. And to me it’s like… I don’t know.’

A-Trak on Southern Hip Hop
‘To be honest there is a lot of Southern stuff right now that I’m feeling. There are tons of unknown acts from Atlanta that just come out with the weirdest beats but that shit bangs like crazy. The way it’s produced is crazy. It’s funny because you could dismiss it as simple because they’re rapping about nothing, but the production to me is what’s most interesting, because it’s experimental as hell. To me it’s way more interesting than a lot of the true school Hip Hop that’s coming out now. Some of the hip hop heads might dismiss a lot of the crunk stuff, or some of the new stuff like the Snap music scene, as not being rap and just silly but to me it’s really interesting because I’ll be listening to the beats and wondering ‘how do they get those sounds?’ Obviously not the “Laffy Taffy” type shit. I just really like a lot of the southern stuff full stop really, like the 3 6 Mafia album was one of my favourites from last year.’

Popularity: 1%

written by Laurent