LumDimSum 1-on-1: The One and Only A-Trak

A-Trak, one of the world’s top electro-hip hop DJs was recently back in Beijing (thanks to M Agency) for his second time for a live performance at Tango.

He won his first DMC championship at only 15 (the youngest DJ ever to claim this title) and he has since won all five DJ world championships and also the first to win DMC, ITF and Vestax.  DJ for Kanye West, A-Trak has also launched America’s most trendsetting new label, Fool’s Gold, and is currently one of the most sought-after remixers in electronic music.

LumDimSum was lucky enough to get some 1-on-1 time with this superstar DJ. (Shout out to DJ Saul D for hooking it up!)

Here’s a glimpse into the real A-trak and his take on fashion, Kanye, his label Fool’s Gold, his toy Grateful Bear, Tweeting, and how he gets in the zone.

A-Trak Up-Close and Personal:

LDS: Wikipedia describes you as a “a DJ, turntablist, and fashion icon”. What’s your take on this?

The fashion stuff is a part of what I do for sure. As a DJ that has a presence on stage and therefore a recognizable image, there’s inevitably a fashion component that comes with that.  I’ve always been a performer, it’s a show that’s visual and therefore I present myself a certain way. For the last many years, with the true friendships with certain designers, I have more and more been intertwined in the fashion and art scene so that reflects on me to a certain extent. For the second half of my career, it’s been more of a look element to the big picture of who is A-trak.

There are so many dimensions and aspects of what defines an artist now a days and fashion is one of them. The way that I dress is pretty recognizable, kids send me their pictures on twitter of their friends who are wearing “an A-trak hat”, who say “look at my friend, he looks like A-trak with his leather jacket on”.   That is what justifies whatever Wikipedia says about me.

LDS: You mentioned “the second part of your career”. How do you break up the phases of your career thus far?

My career has had a couple of chapters for sure. My DJing started in my bedroom in ‘95 and everything took off for me in ‘97 when my professional career started, when I won my first DMC championship that single-handedly opened doors for me.  ‘97 until now has been 14 years, so there’s been a lot that’s happened. The first phase of my career was really turntablism, hip-hop, DJ battles, then I would say the next chapter was playing for Kanye and the chapter after that until now is more about producing, remixing and that progression into electronic music.

LDS: What’s Kanye like in person?

He’s a super nice guy, people always want to say that he’s an *sshole, but he’s actually a lovely guy. He’s very humble in person, very funny and extremely fashionable.  He’s always eager to meet new people, learn new things, learn about things about the arts, design, and fashion.

LDS: If you could DJ alongside any other artist in the world, past or present, who would you pick?

I’d be down to do stuff with Kanye again if we figure out an agreeable way to do it.  We’ve actually been hanging out more lately in the studio, but the present stage of my career is all about what I do – A-trak, Fool’s Gold, Ducksauce. There are many things that make up what A-trak does these days but that also means I’m not interested in getting behind someone else anymore.

LDS: How did you meet your partner of Fool’s Gold, Nick Catchdubs and how did the conception of your record label Fool’s Gold first come about?

Nick and I met around 05 or 06 through mutual DJ friends and promoters in NY, I was still living in Montreal and DJing for Kanye but at the time, we were discovering a new scene in New York, a new crop of DJs that were coming up with really interesting and creative styles of DJ sets. Nick and I started exchanging music and we would create ideas and have conversations about how this artist should be working with that artist and this record should have had better artwork, how this is marketed wrong, and just being fans of music and almost playing fantasy of how we would have done things differently on different projects where we liked the music.  Which basically boiled down to – we would have done it better.

When I first started making traks with Kid Sister, that was the catalyst for Fool’s Gold because Kid Sister essentially had a single that was ready and I wanted to put it out and Nick also said he had a friend who was making great music who was ready too and before we knew it, we had a lot of great releases penciled in just from people around us and that’s how Fool’s Gold started.

LDS: You are super active with social media and you’ve been doing it for a long time, is that something you’ve always wanted to do or is that a part of establishing yourself and your label.

I remember I first started blogging when I was DJing for Kanye. I had a website that I started at that time and I didn’t want to call it blog because I used to think blogs were cheesy.  It’s not something I whole-heartedly embraced at first, it was more sort of something I thought I should be doing. I am always careful not to do too much promotion so that it becomes too impersonal and obnoxious. It has to be as much personal as it is promotional with tweets that really show your personality. I think twitter is the best way to read into people’s personality because the nature of tweeting is so immediate, people don’t have time to think about how they want to present themselves. There’s so much subtext in people’s speech that show what you didn’t get before on a blog and I enjoy playing into that with making dumb jokes and random observations.

LDS: Being successful in any industry is more than having raw talent but also how you market yourself and put yourself out there. This is a rare talent you pull off well. If you could give advice to any up and coming artists, DJs, label execs what would you say that you’ve learned the most in?

There are certain things that stand out– you gotta work hard, you gotta come from the heart.  There’s so much saturation in the market, there are so many names out there and the most important thing is to find ways where you can stand out. Figure out what defines you and amplify that.

LDS: In everything that you’ve done from music to fashion, what’s something you’ve done that you’re most proud of?

I think what I’m most proud of is a general endeavor of creating my own fad. Throughout the 14 years of my career, there is a consistent theme in my career whether it be the sheer unlikelihood of winning a DMC championship at 15 or even being from Canada. Not only was there never a Canadian champion, there was never even a DJ who made it through to the world finals.  So from those years and DJ battle victories to becoming Kanye’s DJ as again, a super Jewish white kid from Canada, it’s not what you think of in the context of rap. In early 90s or 2000’s, I didn’t fit the mold for a hip-hop DJ. That was what I was most proud of because people didn’t think I could get there and I did. Even to be a DJ for an artist who became one of the most important DJs in not just hip-hop but popular music. Just that consistent unlikelihood of breaking doors open and continuing to find new ways to reinvent what people conceive of a DJ’s role. That’s what I’m most proud of and that’s why I always yearn for what’s next- how else can DJs be reinvented, it’s an ongoing process.

LDS: A little off-topic, but tell me the story behind your toy, Grateful Bear.

That was a creation of Dust La Rock, my art director. I hired him to design a website for me in 2006 and he asked me a bunch of questions – what do you like, etc. I said I like weird animals, I like to visit zoos when I travel, and he suggested a website based on all these psychedelic animals and I liked that because I liked his style of illustration and every page was a different animal. The landing page was the North pole with a bear and the About Page was a Canadian moose and another page was underwater themed and that was the concept of the website. I loved the bear on the home page so we made an A-trak bear from the design on the website and that’s where grateful bear is from – a bear on my homepage dropping acid.

LDS: With whenever you DJ, do you have any rituals?

In general I go to a club an hour before my set to get a vibe of the party. People always come up to me at clubs and come up to me and say “you look like you’re having the worst time or like you don’t want to be here” but it’s because I’m just in my own world, I need to forget about stress from the day and I guess I don’t show a lot of expression in my face anyway.

My days are very intense, doing four things at once – replying to emails, looking at blogs, working on tracks, being pulled in three or four directions at the same time, I’m always moving at maximum speed so before my set, I need to zone out and musically I need to reset, not think about my blackberry or twitter, and just absorb the atmosphere and the crowd.  It’s in my personality to zone out, so I’ll be in the club, but really be in my head and just soak in the environment and when I get on stage, I switch on. Like a wave that recoils, I need to just chill out before I go up on stage.

LDS: How do you feel about your set tonight?

I feel good today. I did yoga earlier. That’s the one thing I do for my well-being and I only started it up again the last couple of weeks. The lifestyle of touring destroys the human body so yoga’s what I do to reset. I feel great and ready for tonight. Last time I played here, I was sick so I want to do it right this time.

…And right he did.

A-Trak’s performance at Tango was siiiiiiiick to witness and the crowd went wild…evidence below to prove it!

LumDimSum Snapshots of A-Trak LIVE at Tango: