Diplo

Celebrating "Heaven Or Not" going #1 on the dance charts, Diplo joined us for the first time on America's Dance 30, and shared how the smash was born w Riva Starr & Kareen Lomax, how long ago they started working on it, and how many Vs there were of the song before it was released.

We also got to know Diplo better w #FinkysFirsts!

Find out about:

• what he first wanted to be growing up
• what his first choices for artist names were, and where 'Diplo' came from
• where the name 'Major Lazer' first came from
• the first show he ever played, and if there's anywhere he still wants to play
• the first house he grew up in
• the first thing he would have his clone take over
• his first major fear

Follow: @AmericasDance30 on all socials!

Count down the biggest dance songs in the country every week with Brian Fink on America’s Dance 30; listen on stations around the world!

Follow: @AmericasDance30 on all socials!

Count down the biggest dance songs in the country every week with Brian Fink on America’s Dance 30; listen on stations around the world!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Where are you right now? I'mdriving to the radio station. Wait,
you're actually driving right now? Wheresomebody's driving you? No, someone's driving
Colin. That's ridiculous, gotcha.Tesla doesn't self drive like that anymore.
It doesn't do it. Yeah,because it was smashing into too many people
by itself. I didn't smash anybody, though. Why am I suffering?
That's why we can't have nice things? Yeah, they ruined it. Dance

(00:36):
counting down the biggest dance songs inthe country. This is America's Dance thirty
Now, Diplo. Before we evenstart this, I just need to know
one hundred percent is this Diplo?Or is this one of his clones?
Could be a clone? I don'teven know anymore ever reprogrammed so well,
no, we don't know who's theoriginal. It's like multiplicity gone wrong.

(00:58):
Well either way, Diplo or clone. Welcome to America's Dance thirty for the
first time. Hey, I can'tbelieve it's the first time having you on
the show. It's great seeing you. It's been a long time since we've
had a chance to catch up.Besides you being insanely busy, how have
you been It's been a busy yeardoing everything from traveling to the Caribbean for

(01:22):
shows to doing stage Coach. NowI got my Pasha residency and at Visa,
and then just being in La writingrecords and going to Vegas this weekend.
You know how it is the summerseason as celebrity goes some parties and
plays the dance music. So I'mout there. I'm out there in the
streets. Yeah, you definitely areand getting some parties in the streets shut
down. Yeah, just party atnight anymore. We party in the day

(01:45):
exactly. Well, congratulations on theincredible success of Heaven or Not with Revastarr
and Kareem Lomax. Thank you,thank you for playing that. Absolutely can't
wait to talk about how this songwas born, especially since the first time
I heard Kareem Lomas was on anotherone of your songs. Before we talk
all about Heaven or Not, let'sget to know Diplow a little better with

(02:07):
Finky's first Yes, sir, so, I know music runs deep in your
blood. You grew up in Florida. You were in Florida breaks, you
were throwing parties and doing mixtapes.You're even a radio DJ or college radio

(02:29):
station. But I love finding outthe origin story of artists. When you
were younger and growing up, wasmusic the first thing you wanted to get
into or was there something else?No? I mean I really like sports.
I was really into football when Iwas really young. When you were
in Florida, you kind of likegravitate the football. You start playing from
like three four years old. Itwas really to that I decided I wasn't

(02:50):
bigger than all the guys in Floridaare just gigantic. So around like ten
years old, I was like,these kids are already like three feet taller
than me in a basket. Itried that for a little bit. It's
pretty bad in baseball, never reallymade an impact. I finally got to
wrestling, and I was actually prettygood at that. I was good wrestling,
and I think I was about highschool. Now I started getting I

(03:13):
was like getting beat up, yeah, and the wrestling matches. So I
moved on to music. Music wasa last resort. Yeah. Now,
of course, Diplo isn't your realname. I saw your post about you
naming yourself after a dinosaur because youwere obsessed with them. Is that true

(03:34):
that you got the name Diplo fromDiplo to kiss. Yeah, I did
get from that. It was agirl named me that like no school,
and it kind of stuck with me. I don't know how I transferred it
to Diplo, but it sounded likeway better. It's easier to pronounce,
and I've kept it for Man,this is going to be twenty like eight
years, twenty nine years of thatname. Well, happy early thirtieth anniverse

(04:00):
of Diplo. Yeah, yeah,it's crazy. I had to you googleize
that dinosaur and that is a sicklooking dinosaur. Yeah, it's a big
It was the biggest dinosaur for manydecades. And they found another one that
was bigger called Argentinasaurus that was evena bigger one. But the biggest animal
in the world always remained the bluewhale. Well, I got to be
honest, I'm glad you chose Diploover blue whale. Yeah, blue whale.

(04:23):
Good. Now, when you weredeciding on artists names, was Diplo
the first name you were going togo with or were there other names you
were considering? I had a bunch. I used to do graffiti a lot
too. I was in a littlegraffiti crew living in like the cities that
moved to Tennessee for Ladderdale, andI had a couple of graffiti names,
and but then they were that cool. I just kind of stuck with Diplo

(04:45):
and then that was my domb deGuerre. But you know, since then,
I made five other projects. Youknow, we have Jack Q,
we have Major Laser, Silk City, Thomas Wesley, and I think something
new of Trump put out soon too. It's the projects. So I'm always
kind of keeping my LSD as alwayssome new kind of projects happening. Yeah,

(05:05):
I don't know how you keep trackof everything. I don't. That's
why you've got an assistant. Yenow along to say so, no,
I really really losing it right now. Now along the same lines you mentioned
Major Laser. Was Major Laser thefirst name you guys were going to go
with or with their other names.That name was so funny that we just
kind of made a bunch of wwe've heard in Jamaica, like major,

(05:30):
admiral, colonel and all these laserfanton Like, we just kind of grabbed
a bunch of words and put themin a hat. And that was the
first two words that came out.It was major and laser. That's that
was the name of the projects.Well, it's such an epic name.
That's so crazy that it came togetherlike that. Yeah, that's perfect.
Now you've done shows, I think, on every single square of this planet.

(05:51):
But do you remember the first showyou ever did? Yeah, I
think so. I think it wasin Daytona Beach at a pool during spring
break for a bunch of families.And the guy who gave me the job
took the weekend off and he wasDJ with cassettes and all kinds of stuff.
It was very This is very muchlike early ninety mid nineties, I

(06:13):
think. And I was like sixteenyears old, and I just went there
and DJ at a pool party,and I had whatever records I had.
I had like a Jimmy Henders record, a PC Boys record, maybe one
or two House records, the AllmanBrothers. I just played songs, mix
them together, no real blending,no, not really dancers even. Man.
I remember the days of trying toput things together on cassette where you
would hit pause and then try torelease it real quick before you start the

(06:38):
next one. Yeah, I meanI did that with the radio. I
love I love taping radio songs,making my own mixtapes. Yeah, I
know the Countdown would have these songsin a row and I would count them
down. And I always work forlike the Madonna song or the cuns and
rows of song and make little mixtapeslike that. Now, by the way,

(07:01):
is there anywhere that you haven't playedthat you still want to play?
Uh? There's been been every continentnow and I've gone to the place that
I really was wanted to see,like whether it was Western Australia, Mongolia
or Pakistan, someplace in the MiddleEast, you know, like Iran,
or someplace in Africa that are reallyhard to get to, like Rwanda played

(07:24):
with Lawi Konda so many there's stillsome some frontier out there. Hutan.
Have been to Bolivia. Anybody inBolivia want to booked me? That's that's
a couple. There's always with theMoon Mars. Get you on Blue Origin
and have you playing out in space. I tried that or any it was

(07:44):
really expensive. I bet. Now. You were just on the cover of
Architectural Digest, which a few weeksago I said, that's when you know
you've made it as an artist,is when you're on the cover of Architectural
Digest. But do you remember yourfirst house that you grew up in.
I do. I do remember thefirst one. I wasn't born there,
but I was in South Carolina andit was on a dirt road. But

(08:05):
it was a little, tiny,three bedroom house excepting I slept down the
room. My sisters had a room, and we had like a briar patch
in the back. It was allred clay. I remember walking out out
barefoot all the time, finding likestones and Indian artifacts, and it was
like a little fantasy world. Iloved it back then. Such good times,
right, yeah, the best signsbring it back now. I made

(08:28):
the comment earlier about you needing aclone because of how crazy busy you are.
If you could clone yourself, whatwould be the first thing you would
have the clone take over? Man? I would have them organize my computer
files, organized my dropbox, didn'tgo to the gym for me, and
then sleep for me. Those thefirst things I needed to do. And

(08:50):
then so you can do all theother stuff, like my laundry and like
radio interviews, do the run clubfor me, go run like the marathon
for me, and I'll go tosleep and I'll do the shows. God,
it would be so nice to havea clone now finally in honor of
Heaven or Not and the success thatthis song has had. It's got the
lyrics I'm not afraid of falling,But what is Diplow's first number one major

(09:15):
fear. I'm actually afraid of heights? Pretty pretty bad, really, sky
I went skydiving once and I wouldnever do it again. I didn't find
any pleasure in it, would neverbunge you jump. I remember skydiving.
I did it to DJ show atat the Preepness of the horse race in
Baltimore, and they threw me outof playing with a bunch of Navy seals.

(09:37):
They were so they were so anxietydriven, crazy neurotic guys that I
was like, what is going onhere? I made to punch through the
clouds and the freefall was pretty chill, but the parachute ride was like crazy.
I just could not look down,I couldn't look straight out of closed
my eyes. So we landed.I was just so on into that,
not into that vibe. Yeah,I've skydove. I think it's twelve times

(10:01):
now. And when we canopy,I tell all the instructors listen, don't
spin us, because that's where myequilibrium just gets messed up. And that's
like kind of like that's ninety percentof Skydabby, maybe long maybe more ninety
five is that I just was notintimate. I did it once, I'll
never do it again. But it'sso crazy. I see you cliff jumping
all the time. That doesn't botheryou. I don't know. I'm not

(10:22):
afraid of water, and I don'tknow how to control my body, but
when you're that high, it justfeels like that's one I mean, I
know my limits. I'll never golike pass like fifty feet. You know,
some guys do like eighty hundred feetFor some reason. I love the
vigoration of cliff jumping just after fiftyfeet to get the speed that starts to
become scary and dangerous. But Skydabbywas just I don't know, I don't

(10:43):
like to be in that Peara Shutewas in my vibe. Well, let's
talk about happier stuff, heaven ornot. How was this song born with
Reva Starr and Kareem Lomax. I'vebeen friends with Revel many years. He's
an Italian DJ. We've always tradedrecords play shows for about a decade or
two and Korean is a really goodwriting partner. But we've written a lot
of records together written we're in houserecords and folk rereggords. We were in

(11:07):
records for the people like Leon Bridges. She's an amazing voice. We had
to hit a couple of years backlooking for me and I just was a
voice and I asked Reva to helpproduce a piano track and that was the
record he gave me and being forwe wrote the record with LC to another
amazing songwriter, and we put itout I think a couple of months back,

(11:31):
and speaking the round, people loveit and it's a really good grooverer
and it's kind of like that emotionaltype of piano house that I love.
And I'm glad it's growing. Yeah, it's got such a great vibe to
it. Now, how long agodid you guys start working on it?
A year? That was pretty quick. We've made it beat like a year
ago and I wrote it like sixmonths ago and he got out pretty quick.

(11:52):
So you know, we want tohave those records up with the summer
third now. Something I love tofind out about songs is how many different
v's there are from when you startworking on it all the tweaking that goes
on to when you finally master itand put it out. Do you remember
what the final v was of Heavenor not This? It wasn't that long.
I mean, mainly it was inthe production the direction I love.
In the beginning, we had alot of mixes get done on it.

(12:13):
Like a lot of mixers try tomix six. You couldn't get the right
sound because it had to be somewherebetween popped and the vocal and then someone
that could make a really banging clubsound. But it was mainly there songwriting.
We did the hook about six orseven times, six or seven different
hooks before you got we landed onthe right one. The verses were done
early, so I say probably likeversion of fifteen you heard after the mixes

(12:33):
and everything. Well, it's suchan incredible song. Congratulations on all the
success with it, Congratulations on everythingthat's been going on for you, Diplow.
Thank you so much for your timewith us on America's Dance thirty.
Thank you, sir, appreciate you. America's An thirty counting down the biggest
dance songs in the country. AmAmerica's Dance thirty