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-TRAKThere 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.
More A-Trak Quotes
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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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A few guys will get up there with turntables as purists, to play vinyl or whatever.
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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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It’s always important to me to play something other DJs aren’t playing.
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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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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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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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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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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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I’m one of the few DJs who uses turntables. I’m the only DJ that’s scratching.
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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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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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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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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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