At the age of 15, Montreal native A-Trak (real name Alain Macklovitch) stunned the hip-hop community by becoming the youngest DMC scratch champion in 1997. Last year, A-Trak joined forces with house music legend Armand van Helden to create the DJ supergroup Duck Sauce and produce last summer’s smash hit — the disco-infused, Boney M sampling Barbara Streisand.
For the 13 years in between, A-Trak was Kanye West’s tour DJ, started the very successful and highly influential record label Fool’s Gold, and almost single-handedly ushered in the era of blending hip-hop lyrics and electro beats that has been widely copied over the past few years.
While A-Trak isn’t an aging European trance god who ranks high on the top 100 DJ list, there’s no doubt that the future of modern music will come out of the fingers of this globe-trotting tastemaker.
Photo courtesy of Luxy
A-Trak will be playing his signature smorgasbord of styles on Sunday night when he headlines the Fool’s Gold Asian Sensation tour at Luxy with Congorock.
After becoming the first DJ to win all three turntablist championships (DMC, ITF, Vestax), A-Trak teamed up with Craze to form The Allies, which went on to become the DMC World Team Champions in 2000. By the time he was able to drink legally in his homeland, A-Trak had retired from battling and was changing the way dance clubs look at scratch DJs.
Before A-Trak, champion scratch DJs focused on the technical aspects of their craft, which was great for battles but didn’t impress people who were out at a club looking to cut loose after a long week. A-Trak’s live sets involved beat juggling, cutting, scratching and blending songs in a way that satisfied the scratch nerds, but also kept the dance floor moving.
Photo courtesy of Luxy
In 2004, Kanye West saw A-Trak perform at a London record store and immediately asked him to be his tour DJ. He played sold-out stadiums in North America, Europe and Japan, and even contributed scratches to the albums that West was producing at the time like Common’s Go and West’s own Late Registration.
The mash-up craze was at its peak in the mid-2000s as Michael Jackson a capellas were being put over Nirvana guitar riffs to make crowds go wild.
The blending of genres was interesting at first, but then A-Trak, who released Dirty South Dance in 2007, took it to the next level. He slowed down the vocals from grimy southern rappers and put them over high energy electro beats. This, in turn, created the chart-topping formula for many rappers of today, including Flo Rida, Pitbull, and the Black Eyed Peas.
With fellow DJ Nick Catchdubs, A-Trak started the Fool’s Gold record label in 2007. This introduced the world to hipster rappers Kid Sister and Kid Cudi, and enhanced A-Trak’s reputation for his original productions. In 2009, when A-Trak teamed up with Armand van Helden for Duck Sauce, their star-studded video for Barbara Streisand went viral, and it now has more than 54 million views on YouTube.
A-Trak’s live shows, like his career, are unparalleled in the DJ world. Taiwan should expect a debaucherous, party-rocking set accentuated with boundary-pushing turntablism that everyone will be talking about for the whole summer.
■ Dancing Through Sunday presents the Fool’s Gold Asian Sensation Tour featuring A-Trak and Congorock (with Cookie and myself, Marcus Aurelius) Sunday night from 10pm to 4am at Luxy, 5F, 201, Zhongxiao E Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市忠孝東路四段201號5樓). Call (02) 2772-1000 or 0955-904-600 for reservations (English service available). On the Net: www.luxy-taipei.com. Advance tickets are NT$700 (available at Luxy tonight and tomorrow) or NT$900 at the door on Sunday. Tickets come with one drink.
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