"I feel my music is being remixed and whitewashed to sell. The reason is a more “white” sounding dance record they feel will sell better — which is probably right. Of course, no one is better at sounding “white” than actual white artists. "
Mainstreamed = Whitewashed?
?
There have been a couple of musical waves where black pioneers have not been able to cash-in once their genre went mainstream. Its frustrating, however...
Most black people in the US dont listen to "EDM". For some, its a broad label here BTW, right or wrong, that can include house, techno, trance, etc. There are subcultures that may be into house, but its a small subset and tends to be clustered around just a couple of cities. In the early/mid 90s some of the 'house' tunes were regularly played on 'black' radio stations. Later, R&B producers took some house elements and updated their own sounds and (pure) house tracks failed to get commercial traction after that, and stayed underground. At university (late 90s), there was only a handful of us that were into house, and we had to go to "international" parties to hear electronic music, generally. In the early 2000s the more EDM style started making commercial headway in the US, but it was almost all imported stuff from Europe. It was more "trancey" and less "housey".
Anyway, I do think it would be interesting to understand how DJs are compensated for live gigs... he alluded to Carl Cox being underpaid!!! From what I have learned on this forum it seems that 95 percent of DJs dont get paid much (or at all), even in Ibiza. It would be nice to see some actual data.