Dillon Francis

You could call Dillon Francis the court jester of EDM—if his productions didn’t hit quite so hard. Ever since the DJ/producer emerged in the early 2010s with a string of stunning, bass-heavy tracks on three of the genre's most influential labels (Diplo’s Mad Decent, Skrillex’s OWSLA and A-Trak’s Fool’s Gold), he’s made gleeful irreverence a key part of his brand, from the raised middle finger on the cover of his single “I.D.G.A.F.O.S”—an acronym he later reclaimed as the name of his own imprint—to comedic alter egos like DJ Hanzel, Francis’ “Sprockets”-inspired house alias. The L.A. native (born in 1987) broke through at a moment when everything in dance music seemed to be in flux: Dubstep was making inroads in the U.S. and trap music was making the leap from hip-hop to the electronic scene. This suited him perfectly—like his mentors and label bosses, Francis has seemed most at ease when reinventing rave from the ground up, and he’s never shown much interest in conforming to any one style. His 2011 Westside! EP flits between the slow, funky grooves of moombahton and big-room house suffused in “dirty Dutch” squeals; from there he’s continued to experiment, tackling tropical house (“Hello There”), dubstep/synth-pop fusion (“Falling Up”), indie dance (“Anywhere”) and steel-toothed trap (“Get Low,” his earth-shattering collaboration with DJ Snake).