When A$AP Rocky dropped the third single off his debut album Long.Live.A$AP in January 2013, most people saw the name Skrillex on the duo's song "Wild For The Night" and responded skeptically. The dubstep DJ was coming off a year where he had been nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammys, and was about to win his fourth, fifth and sixth Grammys at the award show that next month, weeks after Rocky's album dropped, making the collaboration have the feel of one of those strike-while-the-iron's-hot moments of a rapper jumping on a trend because it's hot. But when the song dropped, the collaboration all of a sudden made sense, with Rocky hopping all over Skrillex's electro-infused mania and making it work.

The track wound up being the most high-profile of a string of new collaborations between the hip-hop and electronic spheres, though by no means the only one. The relationship between the hip-hop and electronic worlds is a close one—they both are, at their core, dance and party music—and the space between the two is evaporating quickly. Longtime Shady Records producer Green Lantern has been stepping into the electronic space more and more in the past few years, with Just Blaze following close behind, collaborating with Baauer and headlining this year's Holy Ship! festival.

On the other side, Skrillex had been in the studio with Kanye working on Yeezus in the summer of 2012, Diplo has worked with Snoop Dogg and Kid Cudi, British duo Disclosure just dropped a track with Bishop Nehru and A-Trak is releasing an EP with Cam'ron in the next few months. And then in the middle is Pretty Lights, the producer and DJ who has been making hip-hop-tinged electronic music since the mid-2000s, recently including Talib Kweli and Eligh on his latest album. Even Waka Flocka has gotten into the game, announcing an EDM album titled Flockaveli Psychotics and touring with Steve Aoki and Borgore.

"It's not really that different, other than you're working with vocalists," Skrillex says about the combination of the two styles. "As far as the medium in which we produce, it's the same exact thing. We're all using samples, we're all using computers, we're all using beats."

With that in mind, XXL spoke to Skrillex, Disclosure's Guy Lawrence, and Pretty Lights in separate interviews to get their takes on the merging of electronic and hip-hop music, rappers embracing new types of beats, and the dwindling middle ground between the two. Fast forward. —Dan Rys (@danrys)

XXL: What originally drew you to hip-hop?
Skrillex: I always loved urban music, for whatever that means, and urban radio, as well as rock and punk rock. I also grew up skateboarding, too, so every skate video you'd find would have punk rock and hip-hop tracks. And it was mostly just the culture, if anything, skateboarding and hanging out with all the skaters at the fuckin' In-N-Out Burger, playing music from our cars, it was always hip-hop.

Guy Lawrence, Disclosure: I was actually into hip-hop long before dance music; it was probably the first electronic music I came across that was made using machines rather than instruments, so it's always been something I made just for fun long before Disclosure even existed. It's fun, I really enjoy it, and hip-hop is such a massive influence on everything we do.

Pretty Lights: I was just a teenager discovering music, and at a certain time I got hit with all the right records. 36 Chambers, a lot of West Coast shit like Pharcyde, you know what I mean. That stuff hit me right away, and I knew I wanted to start getting into that, so I started MCing and listening to all kinds of hip-hop, exploring it from Rakim and that era to super underground hip-hop of that time.

What's the difference working in hip-hop versus working in the electronic realm?
Skrillex: It's not really that different other than you're working with vocalists. I guess A$AP and Kanye in particular, they really know what they want to do. Rocky's obviously hasn't been around as long as Kanye, but he's so particular and so experienced picking good songs and good structures. I've been professionally writing songs since I was 16 with my old band, so it's not just making beats, it's coming from a song standpoint, first.

GL: Hip-hop seems like something I can make on the road, whereas writing songs like "White Noise," we kind of need to be in the studio with someone, with the singer, with the artist, and really come up with the theme of the song, the lyrics, the words, the melodies, and it's just kind of a bit more thought out. Whereas with hip-hop, it's a bit more relaxed. Also, with hip-hop, you can send beats to people and you can get things back, which we never do with Disclosure. And I get a little pleasure when I send it and I get it back and they've smashed it, like with Bishop Nehru, he killed it.

PL: Well really, for me, I was just trying to make original and more cutting-edge hip-hop tracks. What I love about hip-hop, and why I still continue to say that—those are my roots, that's what I'm making, trying to do—is because I tried to include so many unique timbres and sounds and styles into the beats, and into the music, and that's what I love about hip-hop, is that it can be anything. It can be any kind of record you find, you can chop it up and make a fresh beat out of it, whether it's classical or old country, or blues.

Have you noticed more and more rappers reaching out and embracing electronic music?
Skrillex: Yeah, well the funny thing is, as far as the medium in which we produce, it's the same exact thing. We're all using samples, we're all using computers, we're all using beats. It's really close to sound system culture in its roots. If you go back to Run-DMC and Queen Latifah and Tribe Called Quest, sound system parking lot parties is what they were doing, they would sample beats and then rap over them for all their friends. It's the same thing—rappers are fuckin' studio rats, man, just like us. They're always in the studio with all their friends, making shit. That's how we are, too.

GL: Definitely. I don't think it's because they want to just jump on something that's popular, I think it is genuinely because hip-hop and house, if you get it right and leave enough space for someone to do their thing over it, it can really work, musically. I don't know if it's just because it's big at the moment and everyone just wants to jump on it. I hope not.

PL: I have, but I've kind of just been wanting to stick with my own projects. When I want to collaborate—when I make a track that calls for collaboration—I can tell, and I know who I want to work with or what kind of style of MC I want to work with. So cats have been reaching out to me more, but I've also been reaching out to cats more myself. But I'm trying to reach out to a lot more MCs for whole projects based around that whole kind of thing. Some new school shit.

How about guys like Green Lantern, Just Blaze and A-Trak combining hip-hop and electronic music?
Skrillex: It's amazing, man. I love that, it's the best. I'll drop a Just Blaze song here and there in a set and people go off, but when he comes on and plays all his hits, every one of those kids knows it. And it is dance music in its essence. I think it's amazing. When you see the reaction of the kids, hearing all of the work he's done, it sorta feels like it's not surprising.

GL: Yeah. I saw Just Blaze the other day, and he dropped a couple house tunes, which was quite interesting. But yeah, it's good, you know? I mean, house and hip-hop have that close relationship; they're from the same place, and very similar artists have always been interested in both. I really respect artists, especially artists who can release albums in an album format who have that blend between hip-hop and house—even on the same records—and it still sounds like a cohesive record. It's really hard to do. It's definitely something I want to do.

PL: I've been seeing dance music and hip-hop fuse for a long time, you know. And you know, trap and dubstep, when that came to be and that got really fresh, it was the logical order of things. And trap is so hip-hop influenced. It's just cool to see all the ways in which the two—if you want to generalize it into two styles—have affected each other. I think that it just makes sense, man. That music has so much power, and hip-hop lyricism has so much power, and as musicians and artists, I think we're all just striving to make music that is powerful and can affect people in different ways.

Do you see this convergence getting bigger?
Skrillex: I think it's the culture more than the sound. I think dance music is becoming more black, and hip-hop was becoming more white at the same time, if that makes sense. Yeezus was a perfect example of that, him embracing so many other different sounds like rock, and with the Jerkers wearing tight jeans. Kids have access to learn about all these things outside of school and their little cliques. They can go online and discover something they just like. So it makes it more accessible for different lifestyles to enjoy all types of music. But with the roots of electronic music and hip-hop being so similar, it just naturally happens for people to be making records together.

GL: I hope there's not some new genre that comes about called Hip-Hop House or something like that, I hope it just kind of stays house with people rapping on it. But I haven't really thought about it, to be honest. People are only just kind of getting really back into house at the moment, especially the kids who are really young. I don't know, I don't know if it would create a whole new thing. I'm not sure.

PL: Yeah, I definitely do, man, and if I have anything to do with it, I'll do everything I can to keep that convergence happening, hopefully leading to a convergence of the whole new fan base and style. I definitely see it continuing in all directions. Musical evolution always does. We're just branches on a big-ass tree that keeps growing, you know?

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