When M.I.A. signed a licensing agreement with Interscope Records in 2006, she could have tapped the company's resources to collaborate with any rap producer in the world–Kanye West, say, or the Neptunes, or Timbaland. Instead, she wrote almost exclusively with two underground artists named Diplo and Switch, recorded songs with them in a half-dozen countries, and came back with Kala, possibly the best–and certainly the weirdest–pop release of the year.

Kala's kaleidoscopic feel is due in large measure to Switch (born Dave Taylor), a Londoner best known for inventing an anarchic strain of club music called fidget house. Founded on a relentlessly pulverizing backbeat, fidget hits like "Get Ya Dub On" and "Get on Downz" never settle down for more than a few bars, almost as if the producer had dropped his ingredients into a blender and hit Mince with the lid off. Working in 2004 with his long-time collaborator Jesse Rose, Taylor developed his sound in response to the prevailing house scene, which had become an airless and airbrushed version of its former self.

"At the time, it just seemed like we'd heard everything," says Switch from Los Angeles, where he's working on new material with Tricky. "And not only that, people were so serious about stuff; there was no fun in the music anymore, and everyone was so precious about sounding a certain way. No one had open ears, really, and the field had become incredibly specialized.

"We were almost wanting to take the piss a bit," he continues. "And we loved the old jacking stuff, everything from New York and Chicago. So we would take that attitude and drop a rock 'n' roll or soul sample in the middle of this crazy jacking beat, and end up with something that had absolutely no purpose or use to anyone, other than having it played loud in a club for people to get drunk and fall over to."

Facilitating other people's debauchery is a goal Switch shares with Diplo (aka Wesley Pentz), an American DJ who has introduced little-heard genres like Brazilian street funk and Baltimore club music into the play ­lists of the young, pale, and curious. As one half of Hollertronix, the Mississippi-born beatmaker practically invented the mash-up style with 2003's Never Scared, an era-defining mix tape that ran the gamut from classic rock to cocaine rap and beyond. Four years later, the novelty of that approach may have worn off, but its animating concept–that popular music should always be the people's music–remains powerful.

"The best thing about Hollertronix is that we took all these songs and made new edits or new songs out of them," says Diplo, reached in Philadelphia. "It's cool that kids now are playing a weird blend of white music and ghetto music, but the best part of it is that a lot of kids are making their own edits. I like the fact that everybody's doing their own thing and making it their own."

DJs like Diplo are avatars of this generation's DIY–music movement, where the wide availability of sequencing software has turned large numbers of passive listeners into bedroom artists. Switch, too, uses a laptop, applying the laboratory techniques of '90s-era glitch techno–ists to delirious ends. When making the M.I.A. album, Switch travelled from India to Japan to Trinidad with little more than a laptop, a microphone, and a pair of speakers, recording the rapper in hotel rooms, on street corners, and on the beach. In fact, when it came time to lay down some parts for Kala in Greenwich Village's legendary Electric Lady Studios, the Englishman felt almost out of place.

"Obviously, it's nice to turn up and have the full studio entourage at your beck and call," he says. "But I think our simple methods kind of confuse them. You walk into these studios and they have these mad 128-channel SFL mixing desks and you're like, 'Can you set me up with a simple stereo output with channels 1 and 2, please?' And the engineer looks at you like you're crazy."

In some ways, Switch and Diplo derive their vitality from their sheer defiance of the record industry's codes and models–especially in their frequent and illicit sampling of other people's songs. Diplo, in particular, has charted a remarkable course, choosing to work with off-the-radar musicians in England, Brazil, and Jamaica rather than the top-level American rappers his counterparts typically crawl into bed with. With 12-inch releases on his Mad Decent label, with his numerous mix tapes, and with his frequent club appearances, the DJ has carved out a livelihood independent of the mainstream business.

"I don't have any aspirations to be a beatmaking dickhead producer boy," he declares decisively. "I don't want to be the guy sitting there making beats at home and hoping to make a big rap hit out of it. I'll probably make more money just deejaying than I would if I was chasing rappers and getting shit deals on publishing. I have no aspirations to join that whole league of bullshit that is the rap industry. I'd rather just fuck things up and make something on Mad Decent that's more interesting."

That spirit was behind his and Switch's recent trip to Jamaica, where they spent three weeks writing and recording dancehall songs with a motley cast of vocalists including Elephant Man and Mr. Vegas, but there are no concrete plans for the release of that material, and there never were. Making music simply for the fun of it is the basis of what Switch sees as a coming renaissance in popular music.

"I think there's an exciting scene emerging at the moment," he says. "You've got artists like M.I.A. and Spank Rock, and a whole generation of kids who are influenced by everything from punk rock to reggae to techno. We want to take these influences from music around the world and expose them to people who wouldn't ordinarily hear it. Hopefully, that's what we can promote, is for people to do fresh, innovative stuff again, rather than trying to replicate what's gone before."

Diplo & Switch play Plush on Sunday (September 23).