A-Trak has credentials most DJs only dream of. The youngest-ever DMC world champion at age 15 (two years after he bought his first turntable), an honorary member of the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, the first DJ ever to win DMC, ITF, and Vestax, and the first DJ to win five world championships, A-Trak retired from battling at the age of 18 with more to his name than some many times his age. And instead of taking a break, he then decided to start a career, as a producer (his debut album is on its way). Sunglasses Is a Must, A-Trak's recent DVD release, seems intended as a stopgap measure to keep his name fresh in the minds of hip-hop heads as he tours with Kanye West and finishes recording his album: it compiles extensive footage from the young DJ's already-long and storied career, documenting his rise to success and prepping audiences for the next step on the path.
Sunglasses Is a Must takes a lightly humorous approach to the task of chronicling A-Trak's journey; the French-accented Canadian DJ's narration is done as he sits in a fitted hat and white robe by the fireplace, sipping wine while classical music plays in the background. The captions that intermittently appear are in bright and colorful bubble letters, and even through A-Trak's battling ups and downs success seems inevitable and the mood always remains light-hearted. Just how much you like this DVD may depend on how funny you find A-Trak's simple, good-natured humor, but it's harmless and the main footage stands well enough on its own to make this still worth a purchase for those interested in the scratching/battling scene.
The feature can drag in places, having difficulty striking a balance between its easygoing appeal to the casual fan and attempts to showcase more technically impressive battle routines that hardcore scratching fans will eat up but that may bore untrained listeners over the course of the more-than-two-hours main film. The balance is maintained reasonably well, however, and where battle sequences are either truncated or cut entirely for the sake of the casual viewer, they can be viewed in full in the bonus features section of the DVD. And A-Trak's battle routines are, of course, world-class: as we watch him grow from a slightly arrogant teen prodigy to an easily confident young man, his routines get noticably more complex and interesting even as they impress with sheer technical skill. His hands fly from record to record smoothly as the knob snaps back and forth, and even if his parents can't understand the music he makes it's written in the awed faces of the crowds that press against the stage.
And while the feature can drag at times, it's worth watching for some of the great footage that A-Trak captures and provides. Q-bert records the young, new world champion at his house, a suddenly-huge Kanye West flies A-Trak with John Legend and others on his first private jet ride (and they pull pranks on Legend as he sleeps), and, in a definite gem, Stones Throw hip-hop and funk magnate Peanut Butter Wolf takes A-Trak to a brightly-lit toy store and spontaneously starts making music with noisy, colorful children's toys. They buy these, and what ensues is the two DJs standing in a backyard, jamming on gaudy plastic guitars and noise boxes and laughing as they enjoy their surprisingly-solid hip-hop creation.
The feature retrospective can get slow and self-indulgent, but A-Trak's earned the right to enjoy his success at this point. And the DVD, while it won't bore casual hip-hop fans, seems more likely to appeal to fans of A-Trak and the impossibly skillful bouts of turntable battling. A-Trak is, in his mind at least, on the top of the world at this point, prepping a full-length debut and remembering what he's already gone through -- and he's charismatic enough that you can't begrudge him that.
— 10 May 2006
