Concert Preview:
Major Lazer

At his worst, he has been called a backpacking practitioner of musical neo-colonialism. At best, he’s tastemaker, breaking down walls between genres and sounds.

But at the very least, Diplo is a musician with an elastic musical ear. His success can be traced back to M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” but one only needs to look back at 2012 — to the explosive NOLA bounce of “Express Yourself” and the chilling delicacy of his production on Usher’s Grammy-winning “Climax” — to appreciate the range of his influence on today’s sounds.

On his first show in Madison since appearing with Chiddy Bang and Lunice for the Axe-branded college tour last spring, Diplo returns to the Majestic tomorrow night with his Major Lazer posse ahead of the (delayed) release of the group’s second album, Free the Universe.

It’s in his collaboration with producers/DJs Jillionaire and Walshy Fire — whose primary musical lanes most resemble the electronic ragga sound of the project — where the critiques and praises of his style effervesce.

Take “Jah No Partial,” the album’s first single, and its featured artists. English dubstepper Flux Pavilion carries the name recognition, but the voice over the whirring and< em>whumping bass belongs to ’80s dancehall great Johnny Osbourne. It’s Johnny as you’ve never heard him — if only because you’ve probably never heard of Johnny Osbourne.

As Kingston dancehall and Madison moshing collides, watch out for the Dirty Projectors’ Amber Coffman on “Get Free,” along with other sounds from Universe: Shaggy and Wynter Gordon, Bruno Mars and Mystic, Laidback Luke and Ms. Dynamite; these are some of combinations and contortions achieved by the Major Lazer project.

There will also be daggering, which may or may not include a ladder and the group’s frenetic, blonde-Mohawk sporting hypeman Skerrit Boy.

It’s not quite dancehall and not quite house, but if Major Lazer has anything to say about it, a quality sound can’t be boiled down to Bob Marley, Shabba Ranks, or Avicii’s “Levels.”