It’s been a wild ride over the years for US genre-hopping DJ, Diplo, who has gone from the king of the underground crafting beats for M.I.A. and Santigold to unexpected crossover success for his Major Lazer project alongside Switch and hook ups with everyone from Lil’ Jon to Tiesto and, most recently, Don Diablo – grab the free download.

If you were thinking that all that sounds like a pretty weird career trajectory for Diplo then we’d definitely back you up, but it’s all water off a duck’s back to Diplo, who spoke out in an interview with Pitchfork about the politics of selling out, declaring that “authenticity – that word doesn’t exist in my vocabulary anymore”.

Seemingly echoing the sentiments of dance music’s unlikely pop-star David Guetta who famously said “I am not trying to be credible, I am trying to be incredible”, Diplo told Pitchfork that he had a “realization” about artistic credibility when touring with Dim Mak heavyweight Steve Aoki.

“People in Europe don’t like his music and think he’s cheesy,” Diplo said of Aoki’s detractors. “And I realize he doesn’t give a fuck about who doesn’t like him. He plays for 18-year-olds who don’t give a fuck who their older brother likes. He has the people in front of him who love what he does. And I realize I don’t give a fuck what people think is cool or not cool.”

According to the Philadelphia-native, that Aoki-epiphany inspired Diplo to cut loose from any self-imposed rules and indulge his creative whims, which is perhaps how he ended up making beats for Christina Aguilera.

“…I realized, if I don’t do the stuff I feel like, if I make rules about what I can’t do, someone is going to take my rules and fuck it and do it better than me. Someone like will.i.am will do a record that sounds like something I did and sell a million copies. What are we fighting for? You just have to do, you can’t live by the rules of what you’re supposed to do. I think every person is good at something and you just have to push that forward,” Diplo said.

“If I can go from doing a record like Snoop Dogg, and then Rolo Tomassi, a punk record, and then work with Robyn and then Tiesto, I just think that’s funny. And getting sponsored by Goya drinks at some bodega and then getting sponsored by Diesel. It’s more like a game to me, it’s kind of funny. There’s no level of authenticity…Who cares about authenticity now? It doesn’t matter. All that matters is people are enjoying themselves.”

It’s a pretty gutsy rant from Diplo and certainly cements his status as an outspoken member of the dance music community. For our money, if this attitude is what’s needed to bring the hilarious perils of daggering back to Australia for Stereosonic 2010 then we’re all for it.