Turntable wizard A-Trak will put Pacha Macau in a spin
DMC World Champion when just 15 and Kanye West’s tour DJ for almost a decade, the Canadian literally started from scratch to build a multifaceted empire that goes beyond music
The world of turntablism – featuring that particular breed of DJ who can do incredible things involving cutting, scratching and all the tricks that turn a mixer and two turntables into a musical instrument in their own right rather than just a way of playing records – is generally a pretty self-contained one, of interest mainly to scratch nerds and other DJs; its stars rarely break out into the mainstream. A-Trak is an exception.
Winner of the DMC World DJ Championships, the Oscars of DJing, in 1997 at the remarkable age of 15, he is not just one of the most skilled users of a turntable in the world and an endlessly entertaining live DJ, but also something of a Renaissance man – one who’s broken out of the turntablist ghetto and expanded into other areas, not all of them musical, to become a highly influential arbiter of taste.
Canadian A-Trak, real name Alain Macklovitch, who spins at Pacha Macau on Saturday, certainly wears a lot of hats: DJ, producer (both in the electronic music sense of music-maker, and in the more traditional sense of musical facilitator and mastermind), remixer, specialist scratcher, collaborator with everyone, owner of the much-lauded Fool’s Gold record label, fashion designer and streetwear icon. He even has his own travel blog-cum-portal, Infinite Legroom.
After winning the DMC, he racked up wins at every major DJ competition between 1997 and 2000, becoming known in particular as one of the most accomplished scratchers on the planet, and was even made an honorary member of revered crew the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, just about the ultimate accolade for any turntablist.
But he’s also been releasing his own music since 1999. His early singles, like his early influences as a DJ, were grounded solidly in hip hop. But he has moved more into electronic music over recent years, first yoking the two successfully together on his seminal Dirty South Dance mixtape from 2007, and creating a template for blending the two styles that has pretty much taken over the entire musical world in the past few years.