Being white ain’t so bad nowadays. We’ve thoroughly integrated ourselves into the world of sizzurp. We’ve invested some personal cheddar to establish once elusive sidewalk cred and most of us have done so while avoiding shots to the face.

Being Canadian still kinda sucks though. There are a few exceptions: Dudley Do-Right is not one of these. Boris and Natasha were way sicker and they came from the Land of Milk Lines. It’s a pretty irritating stigma for the Canucks I must imagine, way worse than all the Mexican drama going on over on the West Ghost. What it must feel like to look exactly like your neighbors but knowing you’ll never be like them. That one telltale piece of neon fabric is always a dead giveaway.

To the ones who want to secede, just cuz they’ve heard the hollering of a different yang yang…seriously dudes, drive to Jacksonville, get lost and ask for directions, that’s the real yang yang. Any more and I’ll be composing a report for the Third Reich, chills. Then there are the prodigies, who can show up all over the place. Unfortunately, they usually don’t get the tools to handle their gifts, but the ones who do, like A-Trak, get noticed and get rewarded a small budget to make a quirky DVD about touring with Kayne. No need for this history lesson, check homey’s DVD, Sunglasses Is a Must, if you want the life story of bar mitzvah bonuses and DMC domination. Cutting up eggs benedict is the only time A-Trak’s hands shouldn’t be handling vinyl, a mixer and toss in some mammaries.

ignore : So, Miami?
A-Trak: I’ve been going to Miami since I was a kid, for holidays. My parents have a place in Hallandale. My history with Miami runs deep.

So, do you know the Greyhound tracks?
AT: Like, the Jai-Lai?

That place is full of hustlers.
AT: I don’t think I’ve ever been inside, just always seen the mural.

Well, it’s sick, fastest ball game in the world.
AT: Well, anyway, when I joined the Allies, that was like ’98, early ’99. I started going there to work with Craze and Infamous. I’ve been there a bunch of times just laying low, just stay at Craze’s for a week…work on a routine for a battle, anything we needed to practice. Sometimes just to kick back too. Also Winter Music Conference, I’ve been there a bunch of times. I didn’t go this year, I was overseas with Kanye, so…

Yeah.
AT: A lot of times with WMC it’s the type of thing where you’ll build it up, like, “I wanna play at this party, oh shit I wanna play that one with this guy, it’ll be great…” I’ll have all these ideas of how dope it’s gonna be, and then you get there and everybody’s drunk, and half the DJs miss their sets.

That’s Miami though…
AT: Yeah, you just gotta stop thinking about anything and just be there, like, “I’m at conference this year, what’s up?” People’ll ask, “Did you see this guy?” or “Did this guy play?” I’ll be, “I dunno. Miami.” But there’re totally different sides to Miami, though. It’s funny. When I went there with Kanye for the VMAs that was the whole other side to Miami that I never go to, those over the top VIP parties and stuff.

I wanted to ask you about that too. Is it weird to be DJing million-dollar bar mitzvahs and things like that?
AT: Hey, I don’t DJ bar mitzvahs, man.

You know what I mean.
AT: More than anything it’s just a trip to see how many different audiences DJing can touch. That’s kind of been something I really wanted to push with my career, personally. When I saw that the turntablism scene, as a self-contained scene, was losing a bit of steam in the last couple years…some people would just get discouraged and say, “Well, I’ll just start doing a weekly club gig now.” But for me, I always felt I could take it to other places. Kanye gave me one opportunity where I could take it to another context, but it’s still not really a stress because

Kanye’s music stands for a hip hop formula from years ago, that uses the DJ so closely. But at the same time, to go to the VMAs or the Grammies…I’m like, “I’m here? What the fuck is going on here? I’m an underground DJ!”

So is it strange to see something that’s dear to you and a few other DJs who see eye to eye, in a kind of “party mix” format like you were doing last night? [On the Sunglasses is a Must tour w/ The Rub and Chromeo]
AT: It’s a whole other game for me; as opposed to the kid of DJing I was doing for the first few years where it was all about the technical skills: getting more and more into mixing and learning how to rock parties more. There’s always gonna be somebody who wants to see the technical routine. But there’s a lot of ways to make that more interesting and that was kind of the mission for this tour with me, and The Rub. The whole way that they play is on some creative party rocking. And with my brother’s group, Chromeo, co-headlining, that was the best part for me.

Is seeing your brother go on to do his own thing, with his own fans and fame and whatnot, a little strange?
AT: He and I have always worked very closely together with everything. Of course I’ve had my own career (coughs a la “hem hum”). Originally, yeah I started DJing with his band, and then, we started Audio Research, our record label, then we did Obscure Disorder…Then he’d go off and do beats with somebody else, and I’d go do my DJ thing, but we’d always interact. When he built Chromeo that was just cool because, even when he was making rap beats, he was the producer that had an idea for the whole song. He came from the band thing originally, so when he made rap beats, it was like a science project: “Let me restrict myself to this one sampler.” But then he went back to wanting to play guitar and singing and so forth. Him going and doing Chromeo was interesting because he was always with me, behind the scenes, but he never went out on tours, physically, and saw what it was like to be out on tour, to be in that zone. Mentally you get into a zone when you tour: autopilot. It’s a whole different mentality. Now he’s like, “I understand why you zone out on the plane,” or whatever; whereas before he was always like, “What do you do? If I was there I’d be like reading a book and answering emails, and, and, and.” But now he gets it.

Some quiet away from the sharks.
AT: Yeah.

You mentioned The Rub. They recently had a kind a fizzle with a residency over at Studio A, huh?
AT: I heard they were trying to build something there. It was cool that they found a guy in Miami who wanted to do something there, to build something similar to their night in Brooklyn. You’ll find DJs in all different cities with a similar style of party rocking [thanks to the internet]. I guess someone in Miami saw their stuff, but nowadays to keep a monthly going is a whole other pair of shoes.

At this point A-Trak went on a tangent about the Internet and how the hip hop scenes are no longer isolated. There was some stuff about imagining Jay-Z seeing Juvenile circa 400 Degreez, and Foxy Brown telling him to check for Cash Money records. You can check out Mydaughtersfuckingablackguy.com (or just hit up Kayne), for the full transcript, but there was some talk of regional rap being the hot thing.

Mmm Hmm.
AT: Miami keeps showing new sides to me. Like the third partner in Audio Research, Willow [the king of the Montreal graphic design movement, according to A-Trak: The movement; fools]. He designed a bunch of the American Apparel stores, so he was out in Miami, and he showed me the scene that he was hanging out with - the whole gentrified, downtown thing, the trendy side. And now we got the Rick Ross side…

As far as records, do you have stacks and stacks…
AT: My walls are pretty much covered. But then again, I’ll go to Z-Trip’s house and there’re like eighteen times more records. I went to Mr. Dibbs house and he told me he had a whole storage “house”. I mean I wish we had more time on this thing, but I have friends who’ll go on an around the country road trip and stop in every city, look in the phone book, like, “records, records, records”. Kid Koala would tell me that kind of story in Montreal, “I was on tour with Cut Chemist, we stopped in every city, look up in the phone book, bought records and shipped them home every week or so.”

That’s pretty bananas.
AT: But with this tour with a show every day pretty much in a different city, there’s not really time for that. Serato changed everything with the software. I don’t need to fuck with that. Other DJs or records labels send me stuff in my Mbox. I open my email and it is like, “Rick Ross ‘Hustlin’ remix w/ Jay-Z and Young Jeezy.” And I’ll get it the day that every other DJ gets it.

It started with Final Scratch, huh?
AT: Final Scratch showed that there was something there.

Do you feel like it’s cheating at all?
AT: What part of it?

The part of it that it’s an mp3 playing, to me that’s a weird thing.
AT: Uh…

Well?
AT: That you said, “That’s a weird thing.”To me there’s no type of authenticity debate. The only thing that’s different, well, technique-wise, there is no difference.You’re playing

with real vinyl, so…if you suck as a DJ you’ll still suck at Serato.

I wasn’t saying it was some kind of magic program.
AT: The thing that’s different is the way you access the music. I could see why an old school diggin’ head could get mad if I go and trade mp3s with DJ AM or whatever and we each give each other like 10 gigs of mp3s. All of a sudden I’ve got a great ‘80s collection and a rock collection. [A-Trak does his Old School Diggin’ Head voice] “That’s not how a DJ accesses music!” Nowadays you can’t sit back and complain about that shit because that’s how access to music is now. So if you’re going to sit back and pout, then a whole generation’s gonna pass you by.

And you’ll be holding, ahem, a dusty record?
AT: Exactly. I mean, I still have incredible respect for the people who dig. But, I don’t think you can knock a DJ for accessing music that way, because that reality can’t be changed, we’re at that stage now. My thing is: Now that everybody has access to so much more music, it forces the DJs to make their sets more interesting in the way they play it. With this tour, with The Rub, we really wanted to personalize our set, do more of the live remixes and like transitions…

So, getting mad groupie love on the tour?
AT: This tour’s been very PG-13.

That’s terrible. Have there been some NC-17s though? [Ed. Note: ignore be bannin’ this generic-ass question in the future. At least we got giggles.]
AT: [giggles] I plead the Fifth. [I think the Fifth Amendment in Canada has something to do with British Columbia - expatriates, hmm.] Honestly man, I’ve just been resting. It’s so precious. We gotta wake up at seven to drive for 10 hours.

Sitting on a bus?
AT: Nah man, Dodge Caravan. The Humbling Tour. In this one it’s: me, the two other DJs and the tour manager driving…lots of bonding. We all get along. I don’t really have a hard time getting along with anyone. With the Kanye tour it’s different. He hooks it up.

Did Kayne introduce to you how to fade your hair proper?
AT: Oh, his barber cuts my hair.

There you go.
AT: But I’m in need of a haircut. His barber, his name is I.B.

I.B. cutting hair?
AT: Zing! He’s actually one of the best barbers in Chicago; he’s won competitions and shit.

So are you gonna get a zigzag beard or anything?
AT: But I’ve been getting designs in my hair.

Such as?
AT: The last cut I had in my hair was some stars, then before that it was some graff arrows and stuff. But now Kanye’s getting them.

Biting your style!
AT: Un-huh.

DJing doesn’t really have a race barrier, but how’s that working for Kanye, image-wise?
AT: Recording with Kanye West there’s always an image involved. He stands for so much image-wise. He goes after music first, it just happen that we have some similar taste in fashion stuff; whatever, he hired me.

Let’s talk about your dietary habits, morning, noon and night.
AT: On tour there are no regular eating habits. There’s always at least one meal a day when you’re driving and you stop and grab something - or, if you’re flying. The worst is when you have two connecting flights and they’re each two and a half hours long with a short connection, you don’t get any food. You end up not eating for half the day. You get to the place where you have to do a show, you’re like, “gimme half an hour, let me eat!”

Are you investing in some Tempur-Pedic wrist guards or something, to prevent the carpal?
AT: Friends tell me I should really start doing yoga. I would like to learn. I have bad posture; I don’t do any sports. I would like to take better care of my body. The wear and tear of traveling is horrible. And what happens is: I’ll go on tour and when I get home I’ll have a few days at home between tours, and that’s when my body breaks down and I gotta chill out and do nothing for like five days. Then go and be a warrior for another three moths or something. I need to figure out what I can do.

Chin-ups, I recommend chin-ups. I do like 70 a day. Did you ever rock snap-away pants at any point in your life?
AT: No. I can proudly say no. You’re putting yourself out there for pranks.

Kids were asking for it. Do you feel like you missed out on a regular childhood at all?
AT: That was my mom’s main concern when I started traveling a lot. But I don’t think so, that much.

So you had normal schooling and whatnot? AT: Up until university, in the same classes with everybody else. Just somewhere else on the weekend, doing gigs, or

whatever.

And no kids in your classes were sweating you or anything?
AT: I wouldn’t even tell kids I was I a DJ, they didn’t know I was until I was on the cover of the local magazines. They’d be like, “What the hell is this?”

Is there anything that has kind of that same appeal as DJing?
AT: In the general sense, you could compare it to any sort of discipline. I guess you could compare my life to an Olympic gymnast. I mean, for someone who scratches at their local weekly or whatever; that’s different.

Scratching all the time is something that you can’t not do.
AT: Exactly.