DJ A-Trak: The _Heeb_ Interview

Over the past few years, hip hop has become almost synonymous with the name Kanye West. And while watching him on stage or on MTV, you might have wondered to yourself, “Who is that white guy spinning for Kanye?” He’s none other than “DJ A-Trak,”:http://www.djatrak.com/ whose latest album, _Dirty South Dance_ is earning him “strong reviews.”:http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/42755-dirty-south-dance_Heeb_ Editor-at-Large Joey Garfield (who directed last summer’s nail-biter “_Borscht Belt Horror_”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSJxa3r7mEc&mode=related&search= met up with A-Trak outside a record store on the Lower East Side of New York where he was rocking some fresh Nike 180s that looked like tropical fish.

*So how’d you become A-Trak?*
Alain Maklevitch is the real name. Alain starts with an A, so that’s that part… It was supposed to be a tag at first. I was 12, my older brother [Chromeo’s Dave 1] was getting into graffiti in Montreal and I just wanted to have a name too. I liked ‘A-Trak’ the best. Everybody thinks its some sort of pun on 8-track, but there’s no meaning behind it. I never really did any tagging and a few months later I started scratching.

*Who introduced you to hip hop?*
My brother’s always been into music. If he was listening to Led Zeppelin or Cypress Hill, I was listening to it too. By ’94, we really got into A Tribe Called Quest’s _Midnight Marauders_, Nas’ _Illmatic_ and De La Soul’s _Buhloone Mindstate_ —those were some of my brother’s first cassettes. I missed what people consider the golden era of hip hop, so I went back and did my homework and learned about it later on.

*How did you get into turntables?*
Any kid that listens to a little rap knows what scratching is and most kids have their dad’s turntables around. I saw my brother and his friends trying to scratch after school, and one day, I tried it out and happened to pick it up really fast. I got some money from my family for my Bar Mitzvah and used it to buy my first Technics 1200 and a mixer—a Gemini Scratch Master, which was the beginning mixer for a lot of people in my generation of DJing.

*What was your first competition?*
I entered the Montreal elimination for the DMC Canadian Championships at a record store. My brother helped train me—he was never a DJ but he had a good ear. I practiced and practiced every day for months. When I won the Montreal battle, my parents started noticing what I was doing. The Canadian finals was only my second battle ever. I just wanted to place and I wound up winning first place. That took me to the world finals, which I won, and from there it was just one battle after the next.

*How old were you?*
I was 14 at the Montreal heat and 15 by the world finals. No one else under 20 has ever won the DMC World Championships. But since I did it in 1997, teenagers have started entering battles, which is great. To this day, I meet DJs who are like, ‘When I saw you on the DMC video, I didn’t know that someone our age was allowed to do battles. But since you did it, I figured I could do it too.’

*Are the competitions judged solely by crowd reaction?*
Not anymore. There has been so much controversy over the years about judging battles. The term ‘turntablism’ was invented in the late ’90s—that’s when barriers were broken down and new feats were achieved. So judging had to be stepped up, too. There used to be incompetent people judging, like sponsors or some guy from MTV. Now there’s official criteria for judging.

*Where would you be without hip hop?*
I’d be in school. I’m trying to pursue a BS in biology part time, but I have to take off a term to tour with Kanye West.

*How did Kanye find you?*
I was doing an in-store performance at a record store in London and Damon Dash was there. I walk in to do my routine and five minutes into it, I see Dame look at me like, ‘Look at this guy.’ The record store liked my performance so they asked me to come by the next day [because] John Legend and Kanye would be there. I did my routine the next day and Kanye was there, but it was too crowded to talk to him. So the day after that, through Damon Dash’s people, I managed to track down Kanye three hours before my flight left London. I said, ‘Hey I was that guy who played at the record store,’ and he said, ‘I’m going on tour with Usher in the fall and I need a DJ. I’m gonna take you on tour.’ That was it.

*That’s some audition process.*
When I saw Kanye before the first show, I hadn’t seen him since London and a lot of stuff was up in the air. He had just told me to show up and we’d figure it out. For the first few weeks, I set up the turntables in the hotel room and we’d fix stuff there and then try it the next day live in front of 20,000 people. But after we got into a routine, we never really rehearsed. Jay-Z came out to the Chicago show and we did a bunch of performances alongside some great acts like ?uestlove or Mos Def and I’m like, ‘Damn, what am I doing here.’ But I always try to keep focused on what needs to get done, rather than thinking, ‘Oh my God, Kanye’s socks are right here!’

*Did you ever imagine you’d be in this position?*
When I first started I had no idea. By the time I got out of battling and had a certain ‘name’ or whatever, I figured it would be great to DJ for someone I really respect. But it’s really hard to get through to that world because turntablism branches off so much from hip hop. There’s a big gap between those universes. Working with Kanye is great because he’s championing the return of an old-school hip hop feel and scratching is associated with that sound. When we went on tour, he was telling me about the Common songs he was working on and how they were trying to do an album that throws back to the vibe in the mid ’90s. He was like, ‘I’m gonna get you to do scratches and it’s gonna fit perfectly.’

What do you think?