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-TRAKI’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.
More A-Trak Quotes
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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.
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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 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.
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When I get up I still check the rap blogs before I check any kind of dance stuff.
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It’s always important to me to play something other DJs aren’t playing.
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I have a radio show on Sirius XM. I put it up as a free download on my Soundcloud and on iTunes. That’s a portal for me once a month, to play songs I know aren’t getting played on that station the rest of the week.
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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.
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There are things I like, there are things I strongly dislike. In my DJ sets and in my production I just gravitate towards what I like.
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Right now it feels like we’re playing a role, like me and a couple of my friends, in where popular culture is going. That’s a very rare thing in a person’s life to be able to be a part of that. It’s a responsibility I take seriously.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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