Deadmau5, Foo Fighters, Chris Brown, David Guetta, and Lil Wayne Doing Dance Music Tribute at Grammys

The Grammys didn’t even have a dance music category until 2003. With the explosion of the genre and pop music crossover, a dance music performance was in order for the event, according to producer Ken Ehrlich. In the past, Ehrlich considered including a dance music performance but was unsure of the appropriate approach. Instead, he conceived a tribute in a tent outside the Staples Center in Los Angeles, with 1,000 fans. Deadmau5, Foo Fighters, Chris Brown, David Guetta, and Lil Wayne are performing.

Ehrlich explained: "We decided to go all out this year. All we're going to try and do next week is to try and put the home audience in the middle of it. ... It is more than just sitting there and watching it."

He added: “I don't know that I figured out a way to do it that felt right until now. My feeling about dance is it's such an immersive experience for the participant, that to put it on stage ... where the audience is not a part of it ... I don't know, honestly, until we came up with the idea of doing it this way, I don't know if it ever would have worked."

Ehrlich considers the performance, which features the Foo Fighters performing the remix of “Rope” with Deadmau5 and Lil Wayne and Brown accompanying Guetta, an ambitious undertaking, but one that’s necessary in the present time. He said: "As much as a recorded medium that it is, and the fact that it's selling a lot of CDs and downloads, it's really a live experience," he said. "It is more than just sitting there and watching it."

Yet, the dance music tribute fits in with the overall scheme of Grammy performances. Ehrlich said: "What I try and do when we're building this show is to think about the audience first. ... What can I do that's going to keep an audience for 3 1/2 hours watching the Grammy Awards? I do try and look for how broad I can make it and still assume that people are going to tune in and stay with it."