Madison native revels as DJ for Run the Jewels
How did little-known DJ and Madison native Gabe Moskoff land such a cool job backing hip-hop duo Run the Jewels around the world?
He cold called Jewels’ Killer Mike — while stoned.
Seriously.
It was August 2009 and Moskoff, who performs as Trackstar the DJ, “thought Killer Mike was the greatest rapper in the world. I was playing his records in clubs like they were radio hits, even though he was at the most underground point of his career.”
“I was reading an interview with Mike and he gave out his phone number and asked fans to reach out,” Moskoff, 37, said. “I didn’t even think twice. I thought it would be an answering service. But he answered the phone.”
On the spot, Moskoff proposed creating a best of Killer Mike mixtape to play in clubs and asked if Mike would host it. Mike said sure.
Two months later, Moskoff met Mike at the A3C hip-hop convention in Atlanta to give him a CD and again offer his services.
“I was thinking an intern approach. I would throw his soda can away, get him a sandwich from Subway,” Moskoff said. “He was like, ‘I’m opening for Rakim. Do you want to DJ for me?’ The next day, I played with my favorite rapper who was opening for arguably the greatest rapper of all time. If the whole story ended there, it would have been all I could have asked for.”
But the story was just beginning. In 2010, Moskoff and Mike met up at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, and Mike again asked if Moskoff would DJ for him. By the fourth gig, Mike introduced Moskoff as “my new tour DJ” — an opportunity Moskoff learned about for the first time during that show.
Soon after that, Moskoff and his wife packed up their place in St. Louis, where Moskoff had been regularly spinning since graduating from Washington University in 2003, and moved to Atlanta.
“It was pretty amazing timing,” Moskoff said. “My first interaction with him came when he was kind of at the lowest point of his career.”
Today, Mike is more popular than he’s ever been with Run the Jewels. In 2011, executives with Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block connected Mike with Brooklyn rapper El-P for a collaboration. Their styles are so different, “you would have never imagined it making sense,” Moskoff said.
But the rappers clicked. As they set up that first tour that year, Moskoff thought “El has a DJ he’s used for years. He’s always used great DJs, dudes I’ve looked up to forever. … In my mind, I was setting myself up to not go on tour. It was heartbreaking, but I was prepared for that. But after a show, El asked, ‘You’re coming on tour, right?’ And I was like, ‘Oh (expletive), if you’ll let me.’ “
Moskoff has scratched on all three Run the Jewels album, all of which have been universally praised by critics.
And he’s been the DJ for nearly every Run the Jewels show, from the Glastonbury Festival to Madison Square Garden to the group’s Milwaukee debut Thursday, opening for Lorde at the BMO Harris Bradley Center.
“I can’t believe who I’ve gotten to meet,” he said. “I have gotten to be around people who I have looked up to for so long. These things are beyond comprehension to a kid from Wisconsin.”