Afrojack ProfileThe EDM scene has divided into two camps as club music booms in the USA creating a new era of Superstar DJ's - a decade after the original DJ jetset was grounded when the superclub bubble burst in 2000.
As news of industry mogul Robert F. X. Sillerman's billion dollar investment into the rave party circuit hit earlier this month, mnml tek exponent Richie Hawtin was warning dance party promoters and DJ's not to take the easy way out.
Hawtin lashed out during the EDMbiz conference in Las Vegas on June 7, calling for an end to the mainstreaming of the electronic music scene.
Since then, Hawtin has become the unofficial spokesperson of underground EDM. He has since repeated his warnings to the Wall Street Journal, upsetting many DJ's who are ready to embrace a cash-backed future.
Hawtin was on the attack again in the LA Times this weekend. He told their news site, "“Now there's a possibility to get to a very high position without much work. It's easy and cool, and an artist with just two or three singles can get a lot of momentum. But they have to understand it's not about just now.
"If you treat this genre like a flash in the pan, it will become one. You have to go into this thinking the music will be around forever.”
The Times pitted Hawtin against Dutch chart star, and remixer-for-hire, Afrojack who argued that as a producer he had to embrace both pop and club music, "When you watch TV, do you just watch the Kardashians? Of course not. I love Richie Hawtin, I love Nicki Minaj, I love Green Velvet."
Afrojack, aka Nick Van De Wall (once rumoured to be 'hanging' with Paris Hilton), argues that his pop success enables him to pump monery back into the scene at a grassroots level via his Wall Recordings label.
But his last word to Hawtin and his acolytes? "I love a good pop song."
