A-Trak

A-Trak is the stage name of Alain Macklovitch, raised in Montreal's Outremont borough. His older brother David is Dave 1 of the electro-funk duo Chromeo. At about ten he started listening to Beastie Boys and Cypress Hill on cassettes his brother brought home, and he later studied physics part-time at McGill University.

He taught himself to scratch on his parents' turntable, with the Montreal DJs Kid Koala and DJ Devious as mentors. From 1997 to 2000 he competed internationally. He was the first DJ to win the DMC, ITF and Vestax titles, and the first to win five world championships. He retired from competition in 2000.

In 1997 A-Trak, his brother and creative director Willo Perron founded the label Audio Research, which put out turntable and hip-hop records, mostly on 12-inch vinyl. It was dissolved in 2011. In the late 1990s he also devised a notation system for scratching and gave a lecture on it at a conference in 2000.

After his competition years, A-Trak spent a stretch of the mid-2000s as Kanye West's touring DJ, which brought his hands-on scratching to arena crowds well outside the battle scene. Duck Sauce, his project with Armand Van Helden, had its breakout in 2010 with "Barbra Streisand", a disco-sampling house track with a whistled hook and the singer's name as its only lyric. It was nominated for a Grammy in 2012.

Fool's Gold, founded in 2007 and run with Nick Catchdubs, mixes rap and club music. The label released Danny Brown's XXX and is credited with developing the careers of Danny Brown, Kid Cudi and Flosstradamus. A-Trak's DJ sets switch between house, rap edits and quick cuts on the turntables.