Claptone and A-Trak

Hailing from Montréal, Canada and of Moroccan and Russian descent, Macklovitch’s musical introduction was playing with his father’s record player at age 13, before purchasing equipment of his own and teaching himself how to scratch. Macklovitch helped formed the rap group Obscure Disorder in 1995 with his older brother David Macklovitch (who formed one half of the synth pop duo Chromeo) promoting Canadian rap to a wider audience. The Macklovitch brothers also established their own label named Audio Research, on which they released Obscure Disorder’s debut single “Lyrically Exposed” in 1997.

The Year also marked the start of A-Trak’s burgeoning rap battling career that would see the DJ rise to previously unseen heights at such a young age. Starting with a win at the DMC World Championship in Italy, and onto victories at the ITF, Vestax World Extravaganza and DMC Team World Championships in both 1999 and 2000. Macklovitch was the youngest ever DJ to win three world championships, as well as the youngest to win five.

At the tender age of 18 A-Trak retired from DJ battling and the 2000s saw Macklovitch focus on his own music; founding the DJ collective the Allies and working with artists such as Non Phixion and Peanut Butter Wolf. A-Trak’s next big break was when he played at a London record store and met Kanye West. Kanye then enlisted Macklovitch’s help on his North American tour and subsequently the albums “Late Registration” and “Graduation” and a number of mixtapes, snowballing the DJ's career to the mainstream and promoting the relevance of talented turntablists.

Since then A-Trak has had the creative freedom to pursue his own interests; releasing his 2007 “Dirty South Dance,” a rap and electronic remix album; producing for Lupe Fiasco and Kid Sister; releasing his own entry in the Fabriclive series; collaborating with Armand Van Helden on the disco house project Duck Sauce; working alongside Kimbra and Mark Foster for the song “Warrior”. A-Trak unsurprisingly is able to find steady work collaborating with some of the biggest names in popular culture and hip-hop including Drake and Kid Cudi, and seems set for even greater heights.