Diplo has called out established dance music stars for "copying" emerging producers' sounds.
The music producer set up his Higher Ground record label two years ago and is hoping to use the project to elevate the "underground" dance scene in the U.S. to new levels of mainstream popularity.
"I'm always looking for a way to make that (underground) sound commercial," he told Billboard. "For that to make sense in America is kind of a riddle."
Having worked with EDM acts including Born Dirty, andhim, and Sidepiece, the star understands the difficulties musicians face, as he reflected, "the doors kind of got closed behind Martin Garrix or Marshmello".
"The old guys aren't going away. I'm not going away. And it's really easy to copy someone's sound," Diplo, real name Thomas Wesley Pentz, explained. "If I'm producer A, and I hear an underground producer doing something that's coming up, I'll just do what he does. EDM doesn't have rules that you can't copy people's sounds because EDM fans don't care. They're not there for the prestige of it.
"So with all these EDM guys, they don't let the young person that's doing the cool thing up," he added.
