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-TRAKWe 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.
More A-Trak Quotes
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It’s always important to me to play something other DJs aren’t playing.
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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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There’s a ton of amazing music that’s not getting heard.
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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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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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I’m one of the few DJs who uses turntables. I’m the only DJ that’s scratching.
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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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My ears are open to all sorts of stuff. I appreciate some of the big electro house guys.I love their music but I also like a lot of the stuff coming out of the U.K. Future garage stuff. A lot of stuff like that.
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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.
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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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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.
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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 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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When I get up I still check the rap blogs before I check any kind of dance stuff.
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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.
A-TRAK