A-Trak
Alain Macklovitch (born March 30, 1982), known by his stage name A-Trak, is a Canadian DJ, record producer, and record executive. He came to prominence in the late 2000s as an international club DJ and remix artist, known for incorporating highly technical turntable skills and scratching into his genre-spanning work. He is also president of the record label Fool's Gold, which was founded in 2007, and is credited for developing the careers of artists such as Kid Cudi, Danny Brown, and Flosstradamus. Among other collaborative projects, he is part of the DJ duo Duck Sauce with Armand Van Helden and was nominated for a Grammy in 2012 for their song "Barbra Streisand".
A-Trak
A-Trak's professional career has spanned over two decades and is built off his early success as a World Champion turntablist as well as Kanye West's original tour DJ. He was named one of the 50 Most Important People in EDM by Rolling Stone and has been called the Global Ambassador of DJ Culture, appearing on the covers of Billboard and Complex magazines.[2][3]
Early life[edit]
Alain Macklovitch was born on March 30, 1982, to Lison, a professional translator, and Elliot Macklovitch, a professor of linguistics and machine language researcher, in Montreal, Quebec.[4][5] He grew up in the Montreal borough of Outremont.[4] His older brother, David "Dave 1" Macklovitch, is one-half of the electro-funk duo Chromeo.[6]
Ethnically, he is Moroccan Jewish on his mother's side and Ashkenazi Jewish on his father's. While his family was 'casually Jewish,' Macklovitch had a bar mitzvah.[7] When he was 18 years old, his mother took him and his brother back to Morocco to connect with their roots. In the early 2000s, he studied physics part-time at McGill University in Montreal.[4][8]
A-Trak began his interest in music around the age of ten, listening to Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill, and other early 1990s hip hop artists on cassettes his brother would bring home. Wanting to find his own instrument to create music on, he experimented with scratching records on his parents' turntable and quickly became fixated on becoming a good turntablist, finding mentors in local Montreal DJs Kid Koala and DJ Devious.[9][10]
Career[edit]
1997–2002: Champion scratch DJ[edit]
A-Trak rapidly rose to prominence when he won the DMC World DJ Championship in 1997 at the age of 15, making him the youngest and first Canadian winner of the competition.[11] A-Trak, who had been involved in the Montreal turntable and hip hop scene for a year or so at this point, was hailed by the international community as a highly technical and accomplished turntablist during the height of the scratch DJing in the 1990s.[12] Between 1997 and 2000, he competed as a DJ internationally. A-Trak was the first DJ to win all three major DJ competition titles (DMC, ITF and Vestax), as well as the first DJ to win five World Championships.[13] While he retired from competition in 2000, he continued to showcase his turntable skills in important DJ forums.[9] A-Trak played the first Coachella Music Festival in 1999.[14]
Sound and equipment[edit]
Over the years, A-Trak has endorsed several brands including Serato Scratch Live[71] and Rane DJ equipment.[23] He was the first artist to ever endorse Serato and influenced many other DJs to use the software.[72]
He is known for merging the sounds of rap and electronic music through his remix work, his 2007 CD Dirty South Dance,[73] his production for Kid Sister and Lupe Fiasco, and his remixes for electronic artists including MSTRKRFT and Boys Noize.[74] However, some of his production displays a separation of his electronic and hip hop identities, with releases such as "Piss Test" featuring Juicy J and collaborations with Tommy Trash on "Tuna Melt".[75] Another hip hop production, "Ray Ban Vision", was used in the 2012 movie Project X.
Personal life[edit]
After residing in Brooklyn for many years, Macklovitch moved to Los Angeles in late 2014.[76][77]
