I love disco and we sample it a lot for Duck Sauce. For me, that sound is kind of a new manifestation. A-Trak More Quotes by A-Trak More Quotes From A-Trak There's a bit less elbow room and latitude to take it somewhere else, at least at festivals. In the club you can do whatever you want but at festivals, especially Ultra, nowadays the crowd wants to hear our songs. A-Trak elbows somewhere-else song At the end of the day, if I do a set at a festival and I only have an hour, which is kind of short for a DJ set, I know that I have to play at least six of my songs. Then the whole challenge is what do I weave around that. How do I stand out? Because at a festival there's probably fifteen songs every DJ's going to play every hour, for the whole day. That to me is more interesting, because I still feel like an outsider in this world. A-Trak play song interesting 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. A-Trak hip-hop heart fun 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 artist song thinking 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. A-Trak people years thinking Now I'm able to play on the main stage and play my own tracks and the crowd likes them. I feel like a lot the other DJs play a lot of the same songs, and not to knock them, but it's important to me to go up there and sort of sneak in a bunch of stuff the other guys aren't playing. A-Trak sneak-in play song I have a radio show on Sirius XM. I put it up as a free download on my Soundcloud and on iTunes. That's a portal for me once a month, to play songs I know aren't getting played on that station the rest of the week. A-Trak months play song Building the scene, going out and doing shows and connecting with the fans, cultivating the fanbase in all these cities. I'm very glad that it's happening. A-Trak going-out fans cities When I started Fool's Gold and producing consistent records that were like electro beats with rapping on it that was experimental and weird. I made a mixtape called Dirty South Dance where I put rap vocals over dance music. That was literally an experiment. Now all these rappers are rapping on dance music. This is something I've been trying to build for a while. A-Trak rap trying dirty 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. A-Trak play america years I think whether dance music had exploded in America, I still would've been a DJ a long time. This is my first love. A-Trak first-love america thinking Right now it feels like we're playing a role, like me and a couple of my friends, in where popular culture is going. That's a very rare thing in a person's life to be able to be a part of that. It's a responsibility I take seriously. A-Trak couple responsibility culture 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. A-Trak running song fun The lifestyle is strenuous on the body, but it's stimulating to the senses and the mind. So there's a give and take. There are days the flights knock me out, where I feel like the human punching bag that is being on planes every other day. I think people sort of glorify it, like "Oh, you're at parties and there's booze and girls." But it's still work. A-Trak party girl thinking 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-Trak games play thinking 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. A-Trak ears sound stuff 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. A-Trak dislike productions djs I'm still a hip-hop producer. I never put a label on what I can do as a producer or a DJ. A-Trak hips labels hip-hop
