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
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.
More A-Trak Quotes
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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.
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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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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.
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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 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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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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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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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.
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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’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.
A-TRAK -
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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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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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.
A-TRAK