CRUMPET SPENDS 5 MINS WITH A-TRIZZLE

CRUMPET SPENDS 5 MINS WITH A-TRIZZLE
Not a lot of DJs have the same approach as Montreal’s golden child A-Trak. His foray with music plays like a script from one of those daytime soap relationships. It all started when he was 15, winning multiple DMC championships. He then went straight up hip hop before heading down the electronic and dance path.

Do you feel like you are cheating on hip hop and turntablism with dance music?
“Cheating on it? No. Because I still do turntablism in my shows and I still listen to hip hop all the time and I still play a lot of hip hop sets. It’s just not the only part of my music anymore. The whole hip hop world is getting turned on to the sound that we’re doing now.”

Like who?
“There’s a lot. From Kanye to Pharrell to even guys like Pitbull and Lil John. All these guys are coming out to our parties and are really interested in this new sound.”
What was the thinking behind the INFINITY + 1 mix?
“I think there was kind of like a sound to it. When I was trying to come up with the tracklisting. I found a bunch of songs that I liked for the moment. I guess you can notice a common thread in some of them.”
What’s the difference between mixing dance music and mixing hip hop?
“When you mix hip hop I think…how you mix songs in hip hop sets as opposed to more dance music. When you mix hip hop records the actual transition is when you’re mixing two songs together tends to be a lot shorter. It’s more about when the next song drops, more about the impact of the song coming in to the mix, as opposed to dance music you can keep two songs mixed together for a very long time.”
And you’re still doing things with DJ craze?
“I’m doing a party with him in Miami. Craze is one of my best friends and one of the DJs I’ve worked with most closely over many, many years in my career. Many months can go by when we don’t do a show together and we get back together again and it always feels natural.”
Any more clothing collabs?
“There’s always more of that in the pipeline. I did this collaboration with Zoo York like a year ago, which is finally going to come out.”
So your brother Chromeo was on Yo Gabba Gabba – you doing any kids TV shows?
“Hopefully the kids like me.”

Infinity + 1 is out now through Onelove/Thrive Records.