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-TRAKIt’s always important to me to play something other DJs aren’t playing.
More A-Trak Quotes
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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’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 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’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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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A few guys will get up there with turntables as purists, to play vinyl or whatever.
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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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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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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.
A-TRAK