This is something to think about when listening to Bok NeroвЂ™s Lorde of Legions EP, released last week as a joint effort between veteran Philadelphia producer Jahlil BeatsвЂ™s Tandem label and Steve AokiвЂ™s Dim Mak. Anything can be EDM as long thereвЂ™s marketing logic to it. The boundaries of EDM remain extremely permeable. The invention of EDM made room for everything from progressive house to dubstep to вЂњdeepвЂќ house to вЂњtrapвЂќ to whatever buzz-genre weвЂ™re putting Flume in. America wanted to dance and, this being America, we needed a corporate infrastructure to make that happen. ThatвЂ™s not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. And so EDM was born: neutral, untainted by history, and ready for brand activations. The вЂњraveвЂќ culture of the UK seemed old fashioned, and familiar terms like вЂњhouseвЂќ and вЂњtranceвЂќ and вЂњtechnoвЂќ had for years been used interchangeably and dismissively by American outsiders to describe all dance music. In the mid-2000s, as dance music and club culture seemed poised to spill into the American mainstream, the industry needed a term for the movement that wouldnвЂ™t alienate the existing factions.

The global dance scene is balkanized into thousands of micro-genres, each with its own diehard fans, many of whom are willing to fight for their particular corner of the clubвЂ™s superiority. Producer Jahlil Beats wants to change that, and Andrew Friedman investigates the deal with Dim Mak that could see more rappers head to the stadium.Д®DM is a marketing term, not a genre. Plenty of popular EDM references mainstream rap, but rapвЂ™s producers and performers, for the most part, sit on the sidelines.

Jahlil beats production