The relationship between A-Trak and Kanye West goes a long way back. The "Push" DJ was Kanye's touring DJ back in the mid-2000s and scratched on Graduation and Late Registration. Adding to the intrigue, A-Trak went on Genius, the crowd-sourced lyric website that provides backstories and context for songs, to give his side of the story for how records were made when he was directly involved with Kanye, including the fact that he introduced Kanye to Daft Punk's music.
He admits to giving Kanye the Daft Punk sample of "Harder, Better, Faster" for "Stronger," which was a critical part of the final product.
"It sort of happened because Swizz Beats sampled 'Technologic' for that Busta Rhymes record 'Touch It.' We were on tour in Europe in 2006, spending a lot of hours on the bus listening to the radio. Kanye heard 'Touch It' and thought that beat was cool. I said, 'He just swooped up Daft Punk.' And Ye said, 'Who?' I just couldn't believe that Kanye had never heard Daft Punk," the DJ explains.
He also discusses his role in "Gold Digger" and how the scratch was used in the track.
"We got back together to play the Sasquatch Festival, and were catching up in the trailer. He said, 'Let me play you something. I put my vocals on all these songs.' For 'Gold Digger,' he had this rough version, but it felt too pop to him. He wanted to give it some hip-hop cred. I had an idea for a scratch ... I knew which sample to use. He said, 'I think it could be cool. We're going to L.A. this week to finish things up' But he was over budget, Def Jam wouldn't pay for anymore flights for that album," he says.
"I ended up live-auditioning. I pulled up the sample for 'Get Down' and I scratched during the choruses, and as soon as we got off stage he was like, 'All right, you're coming to L.A., we gotta record this. I'll pay for the flights, I don't care.' I went to L.A. and recorded the scratches, and the rest is history," he says
See all of A-Trak's annotations on Genius, on which he also described tracks that he did with Danny Brown, Cam'ron and others. He has been going on a binge today, so keep checking back to see if A-Trak does anymore because the DJ/producer has been involved with a lot of records, including some Kid Cudi and Wale songs that were not annotated by him yet.
In the past few weeks we have seen annotations from other producers and musicians like Rick Rubin and Michael Bolton who have used the site to give some background on how their tracks were made. Bolton shared the story of how Kanye got a sample from his old band Blackjack and that despite some fans who thought there was theft involved, Bolton was excited to see his song used in "Never Let Me Down."
