This Is How EDM Is Reviving The Music Industry

Or, “on how women and rhythm and blues have saved the day…”

Back in 2015, after watching SFX Entertainment go belly up in their desire to mainstream electronic music, my personal bubble with EDM burst. I distinctly remember waking up on New Year’s Day that year — after a bittersweet night of partying at U Street Music Hall to Nadastrom’s moombahton and Gent and Jawns’ trap anthems — to do a Google search asking, “Is the American music industry doomed?” Fast forward two years, and it’s impressive to note that EDM is finally doing the work that I thought it could, that of pulling the American music industry out of its doom and restoring its luster. In understanding how electronic music has led the economic and creative charge to, in the rise of concepts like Major Lazer and breakout stars like Kaytranada, newer icons that guide music’s best future. In acts like those aforementioned engaging with and reflecting EDM’s more significantly globalized reach and surges into genres like rhythm and blues, there’s a sense that there’s something greater — like saving the music industry — that can be achieved by the genre.