A-Trak is a turntable artist unlike any other. He is the youngest ever DMC winner (at the age of 15), won 5 world championships titles by the time he was 18 (ITF, Vestax, DMC solo and teams) and was part of two of the most influential crews in the short history of the artform, namely ISPs and the Allies. But far from burning out by the age of 20 like so many ‘child prodigies' before him, A-Trak has continued to blaze his trail and is now co-running his own label, the excellent Audio Research, working on his new album, touring, studying at university and still judging battles and tournaments worldwide. I had the chance to catch up with this Canadian prodigy and all-round nice guy when he dropped in London earlier this year for a one-off special gig. We sat down over dinner and talked about his recent work, the scene in general and more. What followed was caught on tape and is followed by a short q&a on his scratch notation system work.

The first question was going to be what you've been up to recently?

A-Trak: Lately I'm just putting together this project that is going to be my DVD and at the same time my first album. You can see snippets of it at www.djatrak.com, it's called ‘Sunglasses Is A Must'. The DVD is just like a retrospective on a lot of stuff, with footage from all the way to when I first started battling, even before, and through the battles. There is footage of me and Craze putting together routines, hanging out with MixMasterMike, Peanut Butter Wolf, all these guys, going out on tour and playing overseas in Europe, China, Japan, South Africa, Hawaii, all over the place. Just compiling the whole thing into a sort of goofy, fun video to watch and I'm trying to reach people beyond just the scratch scene too so I'm not making it too nerdy. I've tried to make it a really fun thing to watch. And at the same time it will come with a CD that is a short solo album of all my productions, all new stuff, all turntable based, no samplers, about half of it is solo tracks and the rest will have MCs on it. That's all I'm up to right now because it takes me a long time to record stuff, so any free time I get I work on those songs now, especially as I have deadlines that are worrying me a lot (laughs). So yeah just that and in general I go to university part time back at home and I also run the Audio Research label with my brother, I've been getting more and more involved in running the label on a day to day basis, setting up the releases, working with the distributors and just making sure everything is happening right. So that's been taking more and more of my time and then I'm also still doing a lot of shows, I've always been pretty busy with traveling and doing gigs.

Regarding the production as you said it's all turntable based, do you approach the tracks for MCs differently to the solo ones?

A: The tracks I'm doing with MCs are more straightforward hiphop beats, but with the twist that everything is pretty much scratched. So it gives it a different feel but as far as the style and samples go it is still very much rooted in the hiphop I listen to. Anybody that's heard the song ‘The Grill' by Obscure Disorder, that's kind of an indication of what I'm doing with MCs. Whereas the solo tracks, a lot of them are more uptempo, either a lot faster or a lot slower basically. The solo scratch songs I do are either fast, catchy and funny or slow and hypnotic, whereas a lot of the midtempo stuff I've given to MCs.

What about using samplers and more straightforward production techniques, didn't you do some of that with your work on Obscure's album?

A: With Obscure I only produced two songs on the LP, and both of those were pretty much scratch based. One had programmed drums with all the samples scratched and ‘The Grill' was pretty much all scratched and then I added some effects. It was closer to what I'm trying to do now in a sense. I really haven't done that much with just samplers, I have an MPC at home that I won in 99, but it stayed under my bed because in 2000 I was still battling and I wouldn't do anything else. When I pulled it out, the first thing I did was ‘Gangsta Breaks', then I started doing a couple of hiphop beats, but I never put those out because I wasn't too crazy about them. Overtime I just got back to the roots of what I do which is scratching.

Well yeah actually you've got a new break record out haven't you? Do you want to tell us a bit more about it?

A: ‘Monkey Boy Breaks' is the new joint; I mean there is nothing really to say about a battle record...

Did you approach it in a different way?

A: Yeah this one has a bit more of a cohesive sound you know? As far as the beats go this one is a lot more dusty and drum loops and there are less programmed drums, it's more for a dusty sound. Which I was really happy about because to me it sounds more unified as a record. I also tried to throw in original samples that aren't on battle records, but really for me it's come to a point with battle records where it comes down to doing a good record cover. And the record just becomes a pretext to that. Almost... I mean the record takes a long time to make, because you got to get all the samples together. You can't do that in one shot, you probably will do it over many months. I might start by spending two days doing a scratch sentence and then pick it up a month later and continue on that. But yeah to me the most fun is just the covers. Because my first one, ‘Gangsta Breaks', was a take on the Little Wayne record, ‘The block is hot' and this one is a take on the ‘Baby' album by Birdman, and if you look at the Birdman cover and you look at the Monkey Boy cover they are the same thing down to the smallest details. So really to me there is the cover and then battle records are a good way to maintain a presence on the battle scene. When I go and judge battles and I see so many kids using the records we put out on Ammo, it's good you know?

Well seeing as the subject's been brought up, battling: what do you think of it today?

A: I think everybody is bored of it right now you know? I'm not going to lie, I've been trying to grow out of it for a while. Not to turn my back on it, because I still stay on the scene and judge battles regularly, but for me trying to establish my rep as an artist with this record coming and everything I'm fully aware that there is only so many people you can reach when you are known as a battle DJ instead of a DJ that makes some sort of original music.

Let's talk quickly about the Allies, are you guys still working together? Any upcoming projects?

A: Right now we are all pretty much working on solo stuff, it's been like that for a while. I guess I've been trying to do my solo stuff, Craze has been touring on his own for a while too now as well, doing a lot of drum n bass stuff. Infamous has this group now, kind of like a rock band he's working on. Klever is kind of doing his own thing, JSmoke does a lot of party clubs, mixtapes, doesn't really scratch that much anymore he just does a lot of regular club stuff. Develop from what I understand gave up on the whole scratching thing a long time ago and he just does a lot of production trying to sell beats to high profile NY MCs. I haven't heard anything but from what Infamous told me it's a lot of Triton, keyboard beats you know?

At this point our food arrives and so we take a break in our discussion, and come back following a short discussion on where battling is going wrong.

So yeah you were saying what is wrong with battling?

A: Yeah battling is in a funny situation right now, it's kind of like a paradox, because I think that the DJs in general are better then ever, but the battles suck. Mainly because every DJ is doing the same routine as the other guy. There are a couple of guys though, I don't want to say that every DJ battling right now is like that, there are still some guys that are keeping it interesting, but it's so rare that overall you go to any DJ battle anywhere in the world and everybody is doing the same thing. It's got to the point where now there are given standards of what makes a battle routine. Whereas it used to be that everyone came up with their own take on what made a battle routine now you have to have your little intro with some word play, probably two juggles and a scratch routine and end with some shit that is supposed to be the next shit. Like your next level little outro and then that's your routine. It's too bad because it's not fun anymore to watch you know? I mean in my opinion, and again no disrespect to the guys battling right now because there are some good DJs battling, I think the best DJs in the world right now aren't battling anymore. And that just makes a big difference you know?

Don't you think that's evolution in a sense though?

A: I think it's necessary that people stop battling and there is new blood that comes up, I just think there is kind of a void in the last few years where nothing is really sticking out. Like I was saying before you used to see a DJ battle and probably 10 of the guys sucked entirely but you had a couple of guys, maybe 3 or 4 that were each doing their own style, each was really good and it would be a question of who was actually the best one out of those. But now everybody's good! But you'll have one guy who is a little bit more technical, one whose a little bit tighter, one whose a little bit more funky and then how do you pick a winner with that? It's really hard you know? And for the general public I think it's been more and more of a blaze, disinterested attitude. ‘Scratching? Are people still doing that?' You know? It was cool in like 98-99 and now they don't go to battles anymore, which makes it hard when you are trying to do more than just the typical scratch DJ performance because you are already pigeonholed in that purist scene. It's hard to get out of that scene, grow out of it and get a wider audience to come and see you because most of the audience probably already thinks they know what you are going to do. But there are a couple of people that are doing different stuff so you just have to let it be known that there is more to this than what people may first think and there are other people doing different things.

Where do you want to take your music and where do you think you'll end up with it?

A: I'm really looking forward to wrapping up this album, and I'm really anxious to just showcase what I'm doing to as much the DJ crowd as audiences beyond the pure scratch scene. I think there has been a couple of good records of scratch based music lately but there is definitely some voids in what styles are out there, what styles can be showcased on records you know? There is a lot of the slow D-Styles influenced type of beats. And I want to come and show another side of what people can do. Like my take on what can be done with scratch music. And like I said, show it to the scratch community, who I owe it to in a way because I haven't put out a solo song since ‘All Hail to My Hands' on the D-Day EP, so I'm really anxious to show my peers what I've been up to. And at the same time show a bunch of other people who might think they know all there is to know about scratch music that there is still stuff worth listening to out there.

Following our interview I managed to grab a few more words from A-Trak by email regarding his ongoing work on a scratch notation system. As some of you may know already, scratch notation is something I've been quizzing people about for a while when I started this resource and so I wanted to get A-Trak's views and opinions on this subject as he is one of the few people in the world today working on such a system.

What made you want to create your own notation system?

A: I never really set out to do it voluntarily, at first. I was jotting down some ideas one day and I drew some scratches that I needed to remember for a studio session. And later on I realized I was onto something and I decided to build on that idea and make a complete notation system.

How did you go about creating it, I know from having seen some of it in the first issue of Tablist mag that it holds similarities with John Carluccio's system but seems to have been simplified. Was that because you had seen his before, or did you just happen to come up with something similar?

A: It is very similar to John Carluccio's TTM system. In fact it's the same idea interpreted in our own way. I definitely had never seen his system and I'm sure he hadn't seen mine either. I think it's just a pretty intuitive interpretation and we both came up with it around the same time. When he first came out with that pamphlet a few years ago I thought they were over-complicating a few things, like notating juggles, or the way they had different symbols for open fader or closed fader. But I just saw the new issue of Scratch magazine and the way he does it now is extremely similar to mine. Seems like he took away the extra stuff.

Have you been using the system yourself, and implementing it in your work? Have you refined it since you first came up with it, and if so in what ways?

A: Honestly I haven't used it as much in the last few years and I can't say that I changed it since Skratchcon (a conference celebrating the tablist artform held in 2000) and the Tablist article. But I still think it's very useful for someone who is learning how to scratch or actively coming up with new patterns. I just think in the last few years I've been focusing on building routines and recording, etc, and when I practice my cuts it's more to tighten them and work on different flows rather than being like "I must invent a new pattern this week".

You are the only major figure (alongside Radar and Carluccio) in the world of tablism and DJing to have come out openly with a system for notation. Yet after nearly 4-5 years of such systems existing it seems they haven't really picked up with DJs, apart from being useful teaching tools for classes and workshops. Do you agree that it probably will take more time for a 'unified' system to really become widely implemented by DJs and artists worldwide, as a communication tool and a way to archive and keep track of musical development and happenings?

A: Yeah well as I was saying earlier I think Carluccio's and my system are so similar at this point that people might as well consider it as universal. Radar's system, in my opinion, could be useful in communicating with other musicians to describe the rhythm of a scratch solo, but it doesn't explain how a scratch is done. I still think it's useful, but in a different way.

Will you be making your system available to the public in the future? Do you want to?

A: I'd love to. I've been saying for years that I want to write a book about scratch notation and I just haven't had the time. Right now I'm too busy with my current projects to even start thinking about that. I've kind of put the whole idea on the backburner. But I hope I can bring it back soon.

So there you have it, you can catch A-Trak touring the states with the new Vinyl Kombat tournament as well as his other regular showcases. For more info on him and what he's up to be sure to check www.djatrak.com, www.audioresearch.net and www.the-allies.com. You can hear material from A-Trak's previous work as well as an edited audio version of this interview on the June 2004 edition of Turntable Radio at www.turntableradio.com . And stay tuned for more info on Sunglasses is a must coming real soon!

Many thanks to Rob @ Soulbrew for hooking up the interview and A-Trak for his time. Interview by Laurent Fintoni and images courtesy of the artist.