A-Trak

For someone who has had the most seemingly perfect trajectory toward musical stardom—from slicing and dicing his way to every turntablist championship imaginable, to touring as Kanye West's deck jockey—A-Trak goes inexplicably off track with Running Man: Nike + Original Run, derailing himself with his own production, of all things.

At the end of the day, bad electro is just that, no matter how well it's mixed or no matter who slaved away in the studio for hours perfecting every last, grimy, woefully monotonous bar. In fact, DJ's like Diplo, Erol Alkan, and A-Trak (circa last year's Dirty South Dance mixtape) have been successful with it because they use the sound sparingly -- and when they do, it’s a filthy enough track to make you feel like a George Costanza skidmark on a hot day.

And then think of the acts that craft and perform this style of music well. Daft Punk. Justice. Short list, eh? If you were at Coachella on Saturday this past year, you understand why Boys Noize deserves mention here. Which brings up the most pressing conundrum surrounding this CD: what the funk happened to the A-Trak that cranked out the insanely catchy, blissfully vocoder-ish remix of Boys Noize’s “Oh!”

That one remix suggested that A-Trak may have had the chops to transition from his signature banging crunk-hop club mayhem into a full-on electro beast. The result has zero bite, unfortunately. What A-Trak has churned out as a 45 minute, continuous artist effort doesn’t have the bangin’ beats, doesn’t have the quality vocals, and definitely doesn’t have much of a catchy hook anywhere. In a word, it’s just boring.

"I wanted this record to showcase my current style (of up-tempo electro), but I also didn't want to stray away from hip-hop completely,” said A-Trak in reference to this release. Sadly, he manages neither. Whether it’s a dancer or a runner, the object is still to get feet moving.

A-Trak has too much talent to stay down, but when mash-up is filling floors and fusing styles faster than bad genre-hybrid labels can be coined, it’s disheartening to see one of the alpha-males in the movement take two steps back.

—Chris Nelson
07.18.08