A-Trak And Armand Van Helden Explain Their Duck Sauce Name, Sound
‘A lot of times I consult Kanye on names, and he gave me the blessing,’ A-Trak says of his frequent collaborator.
By Adam Murphy
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Duck Sauce’s A-Trak and Armand Van Helden
Photo: MTV News
Thirty years down the line, it’s easy to forget that hip-hop began with DJs stringing the funkiest disco breaks head to tail. But more recently, as evidenced by the creative direction taken by artists like Timbaland and Kanye West, hip-hop seems to be reconnecting with its disco roots.
The prime example of the moment is Duck Sauce, the collaboration between hip-hop mainstay DJ A-Trak and electro-house DJ/producer Armand Van Helden on A-Trak’s Fool’s Gold label.
“I had met [A-Trak] through P-Thugg from Chromeo,” Van Helden said. “He goes, ‘Oh yeah, you gotta meet this guy A-Trak,’ and I’m like, ‘I’ve heard of him.’ … When we met, he was just up on the music. … I was just like, ‘Wow, one day we’ve gotta do something together.’ ”
Last year saw the first Duck Sauce release, a two-track EP called Greatest Hits, containing the triumphant “aNYway,” a discofied house builder with old-school charm, guaranteed to get hands in the air.
But the most obvious question remains: Why call it “Duck Sauce”?
“We had a couple of names in the running,” A-Trak said. “And it was a funny thing, because duck sauce itself was something I used to always make jokes about myself, like, ‘What is duck sauce? Is it made out of duck? Is it for duck?’ … And then my art director, Dust Larock, who does all my artwork, also came up with the name, and I was like, ‘Man, that’s perfect. I love Duck Sauce!’ ”
After consulting Van Helden, A-Trak still had to run it by a friend. “A lot of times I consult Kanye on names, and he gave me the blessing, and I ran with it.”
The fusion of hip-hop and more club-oriented dance music is only the tip of the iceberg. “Right now, most rappers, if they’re still hustlers and they’re trying to be smart, they want to turn in a club banger but in the dance style, not hip-hop beats, not 118 bpm, 130, like the real thing,” Van Helden said. “They want the real deal now. … When you give them a track, they’ll be like, ‘That’s fast,’ but they’ll figure out how to spit on it.”
Related Artists
- A-Trak
- href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/arman_van_helden/artist.jhtml">Arman Van Helden
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