I worked with him for years. I still think Kanye [West] is one of the most important people in music in the last ten years.

Now I'm able to play on the main stage and play my own tracks and the crowd likes them. I feel like a lot the other DJs play a lot of the same songs, and not to knock them, but it's important to me to go up there and sort of sneak in a bunch of stuff the other guys aren't playing.

At the end of the day, if I do a set at a festival and I only have an hour, which is kind of short for a DJ set, I know that I have to play at least six of my songs. Then the whole challenge is what do I weave around that. How do I stand out? Because at a festival there's probably fifteen songs every DJ's going to play every hour, for the whole day. That to me is more interesting, because I still feel like an outsider in this world.

Building the scene, going out and doing shows and connecting with the fans, cultivating the fanbase in all these cities. I'm very glad that it's happening.

There are things I like, there are things I strongly dislike. In my DJ sets and in my production I just gravitate towards what I like.

We have to wake up early and make songs everyday. I run my record label. You work at hours where your body isn't designed to work. But it's fun.

I've been doing it since I was prepubescent when I loved to scratch records and play good music. As it happens, you know I sort of fell into the mix. I really feel like I played a role in bringing dance music to America years ago.