Okay, let’s get right to it: Diplo has been LYING to us all about who he really is. Obviously, he’s Diplo, but did you know that he is also Major Lazer and Jack Ü?
His story starts in 1978 in Tupelo, Mississippi, where he was born as Thomas Wesley Pentz. In 1997 he attended the University of Central Florida before he came to Philly (!!!) to continue studying film and music at Temple University, where he graduated in 2003. Here, he started gaining attention as a DJ by throwing parties, spinning at clubs and dropping mixtapes. One of those mixtapes was named a New York Times top 10 album of 2003. It was titled Never Scared, and it was a collab album by Diplo and Lowbudget (under the artist name “Hollertronix”). In 2004, M.I.A. (All i wanna do is *gunshot x4*) reached out to him in a club in London. Apparently, she walked into the club as he was playing her songs.
Things started getting interesting in 2005, when he started rising to fame as a producer rather than as a DJ. In 2005 Diplo founded Mad Decent (think: Block Party) in Philly and moved the label to LA in 2010. He toured a lot through Mad Decent, bringing together sounds he heard around the world as well as artists that have worked with the label such as Lil’ Jon, Gucci Make and Baauer. (Side Note: Jeffrees is a sub group under the Mad Decent label and it basically exists to drop free music, check them out). Now, he’s produced for huge artists like Lil Wayne, Ariana Grande and AlunaGeorge. He even had a hand in producing “Hold Up” and “All Night” on Beyoncé’s Lemonade.
In 2013, Diplo added Jack Ü to some shows on the Mad Decent lineup, leaving many confused until he later revealed that Jack Ü was Skrillex and himself. They don’t really have much of a backstory besides the fact that they fuxed with each other and wanted to work together, so they did and now they make dope music under one name.
Major Lazer, on the other hand, has nothing to do with Mad Decent, and was even supposed to be a TV series on Adult Swim. Diplo collabed on a full length record with Switch under the name “Major Lazer” and, like Mad Decent, set out to bring light to little-known artists and genres. Major Lazer’s beginning brought out sounds of the Jamaican dancehall scene and worked with Jamaican artists to produce the record Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do. In 2011, Switch left Major Lazer, and Jillionaire and Walshy Fire joined Diplo. The three have been the core members since, working with several big artists and producers to bring out sounds atypical to the electronic music scene.
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