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.
A-TRAKThat 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.
More A-Trak Quotes
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A few guys will get up there with turntables as purists, to play vinyl or whatever.
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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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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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At the end of the day, Fool’s Gold is a label that, when I hear something I like, I try to grab it for the label. There’s a ton of great music coming out.
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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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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 always important to me to play something other DJs aren’t playing.
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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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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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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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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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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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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 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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