News

Fatboy Slim aka Norman Cook may be the coolest dude called Norman we know, in fact the only dude we know called Norman, but that’s beside the point. He just stepped it up with news that when requested to be a guest judge on Simon Cowell’s failed DJ reality show he told him to beat it.

The American Idol, X Factor, America’s Got Talent and pop manager mogul Cowell was in production talks with Will Smith and Jada Pickett-Smith’s production company Overbook to get DJ X Factor off the ground last year, but talks subsequently soured. Cowell approached Cook to be a guest judge, which was politely declined by the legendary producer.

Fatboy Slim’s response reinforces many of the sentiments shared by current DJ’s that such a show challenges the integrity and image of the industry.

Fatboy Slim tells The Sun, “As dance music gets taken over by people like Cowell it becomes about being famous and money, the nasty side which I think for years it was relatively free of. Kids grow up thinking to be a DJ, you’ve got to be sexy and bling… it’s not about that.”

Cook is determined to uphold the purity of the dance music scene and is not easily swayed by the debaucherous nature of EDM, despite his often-questionable antics. In March he stated that Vegas and the EDM scene was not his thing, telling Rolling Stone that –

“I feel more at home at Detroit Movement than I do at EDC,” he says. “I did a residency in Vegas two years ago, and to be honest, the Vegas side of it really isn’t for me – that whole VIP, table, bottles of Cristal, girls with pneumatic tits. That’s not my vibe.”

Fatboy Slim’s influence is far reaching and his beats are still rad, so we respect his stance against the trivialisation and exploitation of the industry. Upcoming Aussie DJ Motez sites Fatboy Slim as one of his favourite artists, so its important that such figures continue to spread the good word.

source: Mixmag