Yeah, that reminds me. If you look at the trajectory of hip-hop, Moment of Truth is kind of one of those last albums before hip-hop really went commercial.

I kind of lost the whole hip-hop scene after 1996. You still had guys like Biggie, Nas, and Jay Z coming in. Mos Def and Wu-Tang always were still doing really good stuff. And then a lot on the underground, obviously. But it kind of lost its mystique. I remember one thing that happened too was that the concerts became really violent, regardless of the country, with a lot of criminals and gangs. For us, it was always speaking to the suburbs, but for others it was speaking to the projects. So when those two groups come together sometimes, it has a really bad effect.

I remember when I discovered Daft Punk with Homework, for me that was a whole new revolution of music. It hit me in the back of my head and I was like ‘what the fuck is going on!?!’ It’s the same principle: You find an old disco record, you chop it up, you add stuff to it and it could be a dance song all of a sudden. So it had that same formula of when I was growing up, looking at Premier and all of these guys. But it was just different. For us, dance music in Europe was cultural already. It started out in the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s, so it was always around. It wasn’t like it is now in a lot of places, where dance music is this whole new thing. We always had it growing up. So it was just a development of that culture that I got into electronic music.

Daft Punk during the ‘Homework’ era

Yeah it is interesting that you say that, because I felt exactly the same way when I heard Discovery in 2001. The way that Daft Punk were chopping those samples was exactly how Premier was doing it. That also really opened my mind up.

We talk about how hip-hop went commercial. I feel like the same thing has happened to dance music. There was a great pocket of time where all of these great, creative records were coming out, and very quickly it turned into the business of making commercial hits. Do you see a parallel there?

It is the same kind of trip. It’s the same as punk rock as well. In the 80s and 90s in the rock world, everybody that had a guitar was an artist. It’s similar in the fact that the scene was so new — in hip-hop or any genre — that the kids that are getting into it have just discovered it. They haven’t really gotten into it or started to have opinions about it. Once they have opinions about it, they dive deeper. But what happened in punk rock and hip-hop is very similar of the journey of dance music.

But at the same time, dance music is such an incredible spectacle. It’s so much more value for your money if you go as a regular kid. The shows are incredible with the amount of production that is put into it. One thing that is really important is the social media aspect. We have so many big artists in the dance world that are promoting this thing called dance music. Whereas nowadays, you have all of these amazing hip-hop artists, but they are only promoting themselves, because they are trying to be different from the others. They are not supporting hip-hop as a genre, they’re just promoting themselves as an artist. They see themselves as a genre, where we see ourselves, all of us, are dance music. It’s that unity is the difference.

Dance music is so bilingual. You can come from any country and be at the top. Whereas if I would see a rapper from France, he would usually rap in French. So the problem was I could really get into his stuff, but I wouldn’t understand it. Whereas here, everybody all over the world are speaking the same language: music. I think that is the big difference. I remember really getting into French hip-hop at the time, it was super sick production, it sounded cool, it was really hard and dark. But I really didn’t understand it. Even if I went to buy an album or two for the cuts, I couldn’t really get into it.

What are your thoughts on the new Iggy Azalea track “Azillion,” that samples your track “Knas?”

I mean, I really don’t even reflect on stuff like that, to be honest. You know, if you look at early Black Eyed Peas, they sampled my record “Be” [on “Boom Boom Pow”] with Laidback Luke. But it’s the same thing there, it’s just a recycling system. Go for it. It’s flattering.

I’ve been listening your new album. The vocals really seem to draw from a lot of melodic rock bands and great 80s synth pop. Would you say that is an inspiration?

To be honest, I can’t really pinpoint where the inspiration comes from, it’s just a part of how I grew up. I haven’t really sat down and said, “I want the album to sound like this,” because it took such a long time. I guess it’s just the style of vocals that I like. But for me, it was really important that I didn’t try and do something. I wanted it to be as natural and as grassroots as possible, where every track had to grow up and become its own thing. I think a lot of synths, a lot of electronic, if you look at everything from Depeche to early rock to whatever I grew up with is probably the inspiration. I’m not trying to do anything with this, which was awesome, because there was no pressure on me, except for the pressure I put on myself to complete something. It was a really cool and organic kind of growth into the whole album.

What can you tell me about recording “Someone Else” with Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons?

We started right before Imagine Dragons’ first album. Before all of those songs came out, we were working together. We worked on a couple of ideas and sent it back forth, and then finally decided on the direction that we wanted. He cut the vocals and the track changed from there. But you know, when I first made it, it was more of like a structured radio record, it didn’t have the backing it had today. But then I just felt that the way that the album moved on, and he became this massive star with Imagine Dragons, it was kind of cool to clash the genres a little bit. Instead of doing the obvious like anybody would do, we thought it would be cool to take a new, more visionary creative approach to it and not do the obvious. I think actually makes more sense, because it’s a much cooler collaboration to me. Rather than just being like “Hey, same song structure as Imagine Dragons, let’s just put a kick drum on it,” like most of the guys would do. I just felt like it needed something else, something different, something more. So I’m really happy about the record. It reminds me of the early days of “Smack My Bitch Up,” like early Prodigy or Chemical Brothers. It has that grit, that darkness which I like.

And then of course, I have to ask, which I hate to ask, but there’s been talk…

Is there going to be a reunion? (laughs)

Right. (laughs)

A lot of people ask me that, everybody asks me about it. We haven’t spoken about it, we haven’t reflected on it, we haven’t even had an email cross paths about it. Like we say, never say never, but at the same time, it’s really far away from even being truthful. So, we have no idea. It’s nothing we’ve ever spoken about.

Alright, well cool man. Thanks for your time.

Awesome, let’s talk more hip-hop next time! Thank you.