A-Trak

EDM Artists >> A-Trak

Who Is A-Trak?

Before he was running one of the most respected indie labels in music, A-Trak was just a kid from Montreal with a pair of turntables and way too much talent for his age. Born Alain Macklovitch on March 30, 1982, he started DJing around age 10, and by 15 he’d already made history. In 1997 he won the DMC World DJ Championship, becoming the youngest winner ever and the first Canadian to take the title. He didn’t stop there either — A-Trak went on to win the ITF and Vestax world titles too, making him the first DJ ever to claim all three major turntablism crowns, with five world championships total to his name. He retired from DJ battles in 2000, but the scratching never left his sets. To this day he’s still one of the only mainstream DJs who actually cuts up records live instead of just hitting play.

His next chapter kicked off in 2004, when Kanye West brought him on as his tour DJ. A-Trak spent two years on the road with Ye and left his mark on the records too, laying down the scratches on “Gold Digger” and contributing to Late Registration and Graduation. That run pushed him toward building something of his own. In 2007 he co-founded Fool’s Gold Records with Nick Catchdubs and Dust La Rock out of Brooklyn, and the label quickly became a launchpad for artists like Kid Cudi, Danny Brown, and Flosstradamus — proof A-Trak’s ear for talent is just as sharp as his cuts.

Then came Duck Sauce. Teaming up with Armand Van Helden in 2009, the disco-house duo blew up with “Barbra Streisand,” a track that hit number one on the Billboard Dance chart, landed a Grammy nomination, and turned into one of those songs literally everyone knows the hook to. They dropped their debut album Quack in 2014 and have kept the project going ever since.

A-Trak’s résumé since then just keeps stacking up. He launched Day Off Radio on Beats 1, started the Goldie Awards in 2017 to spotlight the next generation of scratch DJs and beat makers, and even linked up with his brother Dave 1 of Chromeo for a joint project called The Brothers Macklovitch. From battle circuits to festival mainstages to running his own label, A-Trak’s spent three decades proving turntablism and dance music were never opposites — they’re the same story, just told with different tools.