Diplo interview by Grorille

Grorille: How do you spot artists for Mad Decent, do you still travel a lot or do they send you demos ?
Diplo: I’ve got so many demoes in the last two weeks from just usb keys and cds and I really need to go through them at some point but mainly nowadays, there’s one guy at Mad Decent, his name is Paul Devro, he’s a DJ and he’s an artist, he’s the one who started the Jeffrees with us and he A&Rs everything and the Jeffrees is our free label that we have that has everything from express yourself to ƱZ to Harlem Shake. It’s been the most successful thing ever done in like five years of the label so it’s very cool to see that grow, Paul’s the one, I send him things, I send him demoes that I’m interested in but I let him decide, he has a good ear for everything we have on the label.
G: I guess you’re happy with the status of your label now and your own status but I’d like to know how hard it has been to get there and if you feel you still have work to do?

D: For me the label has always been like something I spend money on every year to keep it alive but this last year we actually turned to profit when every other label is just shrinking, to me it is like a big fuck you to all the major labels but you know i feel like it’s small enough to survive because you have to be fast, it’s like a small speedboat riding circles around a big giant yacht, that’s how it feel sometimes.

G: Well with merchandizing, internet and records, you’re very reactive.

D: Yeah we’re very reactive, we know how to make things move fastly, we don’t make a lot of money though, I’m not saying we’re billionaires but I’m just happy that I can pay everbody’s salary because some people have children at the label, some people are thirty thirty past years old and they wanna make money like a real person

G: Man’s gotta eat…

D: Yeah, because I would hate to have a bunch of people that went on this journey with me and then all they see is their friends becoming accoutants and stuff and well they’re working for Diplo and they’re on welfare so it’s exciting to have people that can make money around me and we can supply themselves but we have a lot more to do for sure. You know, the biggest thing is like we’ll see what happens at the summertime when we do our block parties, we did five the last two years and this year we’re doing fourteen in different cities so we’re doing New York, Philly, not Chicago because Chicago had a riot last year so the city shut it down but anyway whatever; Austin, Texas, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, L.A., Calgary, Toronto, Atlanta and a bunch of other places. So we’ll see, we’re charging tickets this year but so cheap, 20$, you know, we do that because we want people to be able to be safe because we had a riot last year, we had problems of security, we want people to enter fast and paid people to take tickets, all that stuff costs money, we did it for free for five years so it’s time for us to step up the game a little bit, we’ll see how it goes this year.

G: You seem to like and be involved in new technologies, Internet and all that, are you still looking for new medias and expression tools or are you happy with it?

D: Yeah, I’m always looking for something, when it comes to artists you have to be on top of your social media for me, you know i just got Instagram four months ago or something because i have a fucking Blackberry so it’s cool, I had to get a Galaxy to get an app and now I don’t have Vine and everybody has Vine so now I feel like a loser. You have to be on top of your shit in the social media but when it comes to technology and music, I’m fascinated by what’s happening right now, you know the entire world is making music and it’s making it so fast and everybody’s learning about music so fast not just in America with all the trends that we have, I mean in America we have an EDM scene which is cool because it was like a big explosion but now you have individual scenes that are very big now and that are coming up, it reminds me of what happens everywhere from Africa to China to Brazil where people are taking a technology and making something new, something simple you know, like Cumbia Machete in Argentina or Baile Funk in Brazil or Electro, weird drum bass stuff from Indonesia. For me I just think that what happens is technology is gonnna get faster and faster and cheaper and cheaper and it’s just gonna become fucking crazier and crazier and the kids are gonna get younger and younger and this is gonna be weirder and weirder, that’s just it’s gonna go faster because now, just in the last five years, the way that the mixing has happened you know, people doing Dubstep, it became so crazy the way you can make a music sound, that just opened a door and it’s just gonna double itself and become more technical and crazier and it’s exciting, do you know Ray Kurzweil? Have you heard of the singularity?

G: No…

D: He was born in the 40’s or 50’s, he’s the guy who invented synthesizers that actually could play acoustic instruments and then he became a philosopher and he had this book called the singularity about how technology eventually would become one with human beings, it sounds like sci fi but it’s the only guy who would do it in a very logical sense. I think it’s happening as well with music and I think it’s gonna happen super fast, like in the next five years.

G: You travelled and recorded in Jamaica, how have you been welcomed by the locals and how did they perceive you and your work?

D: They shoot me when I got off like « get outta here white boy »
PUSH they just shoot me so I’d be like staying in the boat. Nah I don’t know, Jamaica is full of white people and full of people who make music so it wasn’t weird. I think it was hard to get good songs out of people but eventually the last album was easy because people were excited. Shaggy is one of the biggest artists of all time, he’s actually the most successful Reggae artist ever, funny enough, but he hit us up like I wanna be part of it, I wanna be part of your album. We were like « awesome, that’s crazy » he wouldn’t have offered for the first album so it just show how we grew. We did our first show in Jamaica in january, it was the craziest show, it might be in the top five of the best shows we’ve ever done with Major Lazer and our shows are pretty crazy, we played in the West Indies, it just showed the way the kids adapted and changed their ideas about music. They never had anybody like us come down there, I’m sure the boys wanted to have a different style and attitude but it’s hard, there’s no reason for artists like me or DJs to go to Jamaica, they don’t think that anything happens there but it’s really crazy right now.

G: That was my next question, how has the tour been going?

D: Well starting in Jamaica was the coolest thing, it all started in jamaica by accident, the album was to be out in december or something so we started there, in january the Carribbean Tour, then we did some spot dates to promote « Bumaye » the single in America then the album came out and we did the Ultra Festival and Coachella and then now we’re gonna have two european dates, and there was an american tour last month before the album came out like fifteen dates, yesterday in Paris was so cool and really crazy

G: Yeah, the video reviews are impressive

D: Well I’ve been coming to Paris for a long time and I’ve always felt like I was part of someone else’s scene, whether it is Social Club or whatever is with Pedro Winter, people who have supported me always did like I was a new guy but last night was our crowd you know, it was the first time I felt like people were a hundred per cent Major Lazer fans so it was really exciting because I’ve always wanted to have that in Paris and it was really cool.

G: To finish, what are your next moves except the tour, what are you gonna do?

D: Producing, I’m already working on new Major Lazer stuff, Major Lazer is gonna grow because we have a cartoon that comes out on Fox, it’s gonna be the same time « The Simpsons » is on on sundays, we’re writing all the plots for that so next year you’re gonna have the cartoon version of it, it’s cool but it’s hard to keep it cool though because it might be funny but we wanna keep it like G.I. Joe you know, he was kind of lame, we wanna make it cool. That’s already done, we made a deal with them for the first pilot so we’ll see how that happens. We have to make all the music for that too so if you’re making good Dancehall records, send me your demo because i need to make music for my cartoon now and then just touring more and producing a lot more music like i’m doing everything, working with young rappers, you’d haven’t heard of, people like 2 Chainz or Tyga all the way to Siya, even Miley Cyrus did some songs for me, that was pretty weird.. Everybody, I just try to make as much music as I can while people are paying attention to me… and I also want to be into gymnastics, gold medalist… some training…

G: It’s strange thos independant label bosses who wanna become athletes or stuff, remember Master P who wanted to invest in NBA and play basket ball?

D: He did, he was so old… Laidback Luke also is a kung fu champion, look at his Instagram, he won a war in Hong Kong, it makes you feel old…

G: Laidback Luke?

D: Yeah

G: Damn

D: Yup, I wanna do some kung fu, I need to find some sunday hobby, I’m gonna start to do push ups right now…

#diplo #VVLF #grorille #interview #beattrotting