A-TRAK — Hip Hop & House DJA-TRAK
Alain Macklovitch, known as A-Trak, is a Canadian DJ from Montreal whose career was established first through turntablism. At 15, he won the DMC World DJ Championship in 1997, becoming both its youngest winner and its first Canadian winner. He competed internationally through 2000, developed a scratching notation system and later lectured on it at Skratchcon. That technical command remains a defining part of a DJ style that joins hip hop, electronic music, house and disco house.
In 2004, Kanye West recruited A-Trak as tour DJ. He performed with West at MTV specials, the Grammy Awards and the MTV Video Music Awards, and recorded scratches for Late Registration, Graduation and Gold Digger. He founded Audio Research Records in Montreal in 1997 and, after leaving the Kanye West touring role, co-founded Fool's Gold Records in 2007 with Nick Catchdubs and Dust La Rock. Festival appearances have included Coachella, Glastonbury, Primavera Sound and Lollapalooza.
In 2009 he formed the disco-house duo Duck Sauce with Armand Van Helden. He has also headlined tours of his own, including Sunglasses Is A Must and 10,000LB Hamburger. A-Trak's long-running DJ identity is marked by a technically exacting approach to mixing and scratching, applied across club, festival and hip-hop settings.