After two drug-related deaths at Electric Zoo and the recent banning of all "EDM" performances at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the relationship between electronic dance music and MDMA has warranted increased discussion.
So while MTV News was at TomorrowWorld 2013, we got some of dance music's biggest acts to talk about the controversial topic, and the sentiment was unanimous: Electronic music is not the cause of drug use. Sebastian Ingrosso suggests drugs are just a part of youth culture, just as EDM is, but there's no direct link between the two.
"This music and this scene connects with young people," Ingrosso told us. "Back in the day of Woodstock or whatever it was, people were taking drugs and people were young. It's the same thing,"
Chicago based duo Flosstradamus agreed and pointed out that the drug problem is not just isolated to electronic music.
"If you go to a Sox game, people get wasted and bust their heads open and die," they said. "And if you go to a frat house, a college, a university people are getting alcohol poisoning and dying, because they gotta pledge."
The TomorrowWorld You Don't See: Behind The Scenes At The Festival!
Kaskade took to Twitter shortly after UMass had canceled two dance music concerts (Above & Beyond and Pretty Lights) for October 4 and October 30, due to the genre's connection with recent drug deaths. UMass had canceled another concert five days earlier as well — Return to Fantazia was scheduled to perform on September 21.
"The Molly-taking culture at these shows is real and now exceedingly dangerous to the health+safety of concert attendees," the university said in an email to their students.
Kaskade repeated that statement on Twitter and, making an analogy similar to Flosstradamus, added, "But, WHAT IF we switched out a few words in that statement? For instance, 'Molly' with 'Alcohol', and 'These shows' with 'The NFL'?"
Afrojack wants to confront the issue with an open discussion, particularly among DJs. However, he wanted to remind observers that there is much more to the festival scene than MDMA.
"Don't forget millions of people get really happy by coming to these events. There are so many people that say, 'Oh my god! I met my husband at your show,' [or] 'I love you, I love your music. It helped me through my life,' " Afrojack said. "There is so much beauty coming out of it. There is so much life blooming here. I think that of course it's important to focus on the negative side because you want to fix things, but it's really important not to forget the positive side, the blooming life out of it."
What's your take on the connection between Molly and EDM? Let us know in the comments!
via MTV News
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