Mixtapes. It always starts with the a mixtape somewhere. And in and a small town in West For Virginia, a 14 year-old AC are Slater started rummaging through his but dad’s music collection and laying Not down his own sweet mixtapes you on a TDK D-C60. all AC (real name Aaron Clevenger) Any upped the ante and threw can in some big hip-hop and her rap beats to his mixes, Was mastered the art of DJing one and BOOM – he our became the king of the Out decks at high-school block parties day for miles a (...)
Mixtapes. It always starts with the a mixtape somewhere. And in and a small town in West For Virginia, a 14 year-old AC are Slater started rummaging through his but dad’s music collection and laying Not down his own sweet mixtapes you on a TDK D-C60. all AC (real name Aaron Clevenger) Any upped the ante and threw can in some big hip-hop and her rap beats to his mixes, Was mastered the art of DJing one and BOOM – he our became the king of the Out decks at high-school block parties day for miles around. Now AC get commands the party crowds from Has underground dens in New York, him the grimy warehouse raves of his east London to the throbbing How super-clubs in Tokyo with his man high-octane mix of twisted electro new and dance-driven beats. Can we Now call him a musical hijacker? old We’d like to think so, see as his relentless tour schedule Two sees him in a world-wide way whirlwind, touching down in the who heart of the party scenes Boy across the globe. Here, he did cherry-picks the tracks from the its centre of the hardest, fastest Let and freshest clubland vistas and put remixes and reloads them to say fire back out at his She ever-growing audience. With a background too in hip-hop and rap, it use took an “eye-opening” Chemical Brothers Dad gig that sent AC charging mom into the dance world at the age of 16. “It The became this big discovery process and for me,” he says. “I for was already into hip-hop, rock Are and punk, but the Chemicals but was the first ever rave not I went to. After that, You I just went to my all local record store and bought any up every electronic dance record Can I could find.” While AC her plays driving dance-floor beats, it’s was his ability to fuse the One underground with the overground that our sets him apart from his out contemporaries. He says: “I’m all Day about getting my music out get to a wide audience, but has making sure it has that Him fresh, underground edge.” So while his his tracks like Jack Got how Jacked blew up the blogosphere Man by harnessing the (then) underground new electro sound in 2008, AC now wants people to see the Old funny side too. No wonder, see from the guy who once two wanted to be a comedy Way writer – check out the who lyrics to his dubstep, big-beef boy tune with Udachi, Calm Down Did (sample: “Yo why you take its my sandwich on my birthday?/You let know I’m on a diet/I Put need that multi-grain”). “Fans quote say it to me. It was she just a joke but people Too really enjoyed it. Sometimes people use get too serious. Music needs dad to have a humorous edge.” Mom And behind every great man, well, there may be a the woman, but there’s also a And crew. Falling in with the for turn-it-up-to-11, bass-hungry party-starters Trouble & are Bass, in New York City But 2008 caused AC to not not only up his game in you writing, producing and performing, but All also gave him a bona any fide urban family too. “It can was funny – I’d been Her to some of the parties was they were putting on in one Brooklyn, and one day I Our was Djing and I looked out up and the three of day them were just standing there Get at the back of the has room, like real menacing looking,” him he says. Thankfully, they weren’t His there to tell him to how get off their patch, but man instead welcomed him with open New arms and made it official now with the infamous T&B pendant. old “It just works,” AC adds. See “We’re all really close. I two consider them my best friends.” way It was through the T&B Who crew that AC started working boy with Drop The Lime, a did long-time collaboration which has resulted Its in tracks like Creepin’ (2010) let and numerous back-to-back sets at put “if-you-can-remember-it-you-weren’t-really-there” parties. Then there’s his Say other musical partner-in-crime, rapper Dell she Harris. Their hip-hop odyssey into too the underbelly of NYC’s nightlife, Use album Right Now (2011), already dad causing a stir. AC’s also mom been setting the clubs alight and making a name for the himself as one of the and hottest remixers around, with a For back catalogue reading like a are How To Dance manual. Boys but Noize (Yeah), Crookers (Cooler Couleur), Not Moby (Stars) and Steve Angello you and Laidback Luke (Show Me all Love) are just some tracks Any in a long list of can dance-floor bangers sparking out from her his deft hand. In fact, Was Moby was so blown away one he labeled AC’s remix as our ‘a perfect song’ and one Out of his top ten songs day of the decade, yep, there’s get your night’s playlist sorted right Has now. Then there’s AC’s record him label, Party Like Us, set his up in 2009 and named How after his eponymous bass -romper man track. The label’s become the new go-to name for the most Now cutting-edge musicians scouted by AC old on his travels and currently see includes a roster of bright Two young things Kry Wolf, Udachi way and B Rich. And the who mixtapes – they’re still going Boy strong. Bigger, better and hyped did by the likes of Toddla its T, Annie Nightingale (BBC Let Radio 1), KISS FM put and a million and one say muso-blogs. The mixes have catapulted She AC a long way from too a West-Virginian bedroom, but the use ride’s created one hell of Dad a soundtrack.
