Diplo: Why Is Every Dude a DJ?

27:04When people bring up that clip on the New York Times of me producing with Skrillex, Where You Now? And there's like the dolphin sound in the back. That's just me. learning how to use a certain part of Ableton that it's a pitch shifting and you just go 12, 24 times up and I'm just messing with it and stretching it and that's just me messing with the audio file. So I'm like, that sounds kind of interesting. Nobody else would do that except someone me that's really bad at playing music. I'm just like, I can fuck things up till it sounds interesting to me. And I think I learned a lot of that from one of my mentors, this guy named Switch.

27:37He was a house producer in England. He was the first member of Major Lazer with me. And he He was just a drunken English scientist that was just so good at Logic, this program. And he always just would make a whole song, just print the reverb, and then edit it back and then start the whole song over again. He was just drunk and crazy, like an old PC cap, like Bill Nye on Acid or something. So I learned from him, and I didn't even know how to, I was like, that's how you make music? And then I went to work with Dr. Luke or whatever, and I'm like, oh, you make music like that. I'm confused, so I used a little bit of both.

28:06One's chaotic, one is super clean, perfect, Jeff Basker type of style. And then it feels like music has gotten like more polished. I feel like, you know, in the late nineties, two thousands, like especially like dance hall, like electronic music, it was gritty. And now it's really like, where are you now? It feels, you know, it's like. I feel like that's a pretty rough song. I mean, I feel like it's getting, like when I talk about Paper Planes, it was nominated for a Grammy, but it had like gunshots. Yeah, but that was gritty. We didn't mean to do that. It was literally on a porch recorded. That's not what the Grammys, I think, wanted.

28:39the grammy the grammy uh i think the grammy family was like we have alison krauss and uh jimmy page song we like we need to like this is herbie hancock i'm like what the fuck is this kid screaming about robbing you and the drums are distorted i was like it was a moment in time so but we had like it was a real controversial record we nominated for the gram for record of the year because record here is like everything the way it sounds the marketing the production the writers everything about it and i think that they just trying to does the beginning of the cool because after that you don't have those old people on the grammys anymore that was like when the who would play the grammys now it's just like who's like the new person who's great who's okay but the who's great i love teenage boy slam but i think yeah now it's like how can we get enough young people to watch it yeah now it's like what are 14 year olds listening to yeah so what are 14 year olds listening to listen to you there's some i can't believe my fan base is probably like 11 year olds too because i did a lot of k-pops even younger now seven year olds to like 60-year-old, I mean, God, so many people are like, my dad's your favorite, I mean, is your biggest fan?

29:41And then like, it's very weird. Is there an age over which like people don't know you? Like if people are like above the age of 50, they are unlikely to know you or 40. I'm almost 50, but. Like I wonder if Bill Nye when he meets you later. For sure Bill Nye knows who I am. If he doesn't, I'll be real sad. Well, Casey, his head of space policy at the Planetary Society was like, I'm not familiar with Diplo's work. Fuck Casey. Do you guys want to put money that Bill Nye knows who I am? Okay. Okay. I'll put$100 in. All right. I will see your$100. Oh, and Bet Against Me? Bet Against you. Let's go. Let's go.

30:12It's our other podcast. Okay, so. Betting with the artist, okay. Betting against you. One of the things I love about your music is like how globally referential it is. Did you always have that sense of the world growing up in Florida? Well, I don't know if you know this, but I went to Temple University in Philadelphia for anthropology. So I went to the, like I went to, it was a big anthropology school because I also wanted to make documentaries. so i majored in film and anthropology and i was like my my dream job was probably to be a national geographic photographer or someone you know embedded with uh orangutans people or giant orangutans or cannibals whatever it was or maybe just people in like mississippi where i was from just like something interesting that's like this is cultural i want to archive this and i learned a lot in anthropology school but there was but i learned so much more afterwards just being out there because like anything any discipline that's um academic you got to go do it you can't stay in universities like especially when it comes to creative things like culture art or film you have to just go and grind there's no way to stay in school and when i remember being there i'm about to go to grad school i tried a bunch of schools i was like man these all these all these professors are just like guys that didn't make it they kind of like i was like i need to get out of here this is like a trap yeah and that's when i dropped off and i was like but i'll just try everything and now but first thing was going to india and my my professor in in uh at temple university was awesome he brought a group of kids to india and i just they just left us there yeah and i'd already just kind of finished there and then i just bought a motorcycle and traveled around india for six months and you've been to pakistan i've been to pakistan twice to sambad right yeah it's pretty much it's like more of a chill city though right i want to go karachi you got yeah karachi is the way the party's at and also have you been to like the mountains the north we had a girl that played with me called elephant she was a swedish girl and she we did the show in Zomabad.

32:00It was still kind of sketchy because we had like bomb threats. People were going, we're going to kill everybody at the show, whatever. Yeah. And I was like, well, whatever, let's go. It'd be a cool Wikipedia way and just blow up in Zomabad. I always think of that, like want to die young and full of potential. I was like, we're running out of time. I was like, really, am I going to get blown up in Zomabad? That's kind of fire. Like, let's go. So it didn't happen. It was a fake. There's always next year or west. Yeah. I can go. We can try another time. Anyway, this girl was there And she's like, I was like, where's your flight out?

32:27She's like, no, I'm going to stay for like two weeks. I'm just going to go up into the mountains. Yeah, she went to like Gilgoth and stuff. Bro, she was like by herself. This like little Swedish girl. And I hired her like two weeks later. She's like, it was the best. I spent like$4. I saw the most beautiful. I shot a video by myself. Everybody was so nice to me. But in the north of Pakistan, people look like that. They're much fairer, blue-eyed. Pakistan's a really diverse country. It's super, yeah. I've met people from Pakistan that are like very dark skin, curly hair, some people. And then people that are just like, could be, I don't know, Russian.

32:54From Pakistan, you went to Indonesia. I grew up in Indonesia and Sudan. So did you like Bhangra then? I love Bhangra. Because when I was in Pakistan, I didn't realize like how shared the culture is. Well, Punjab, yeah, because Punjab is split. Bhangra is crazy. Bhangra is great. I worked with Diljeet and... Oh, Diljeet is awesome. He's so badass. He's great. Should I take my sunglasses off now? Take him off. What do you think? Your team's like, no, I think it's fine. I'll put him back here. We're going to do some outfit changes. Let's go. Yeah, let's go. Do you want to wear my clothes at some point?

33:24Do a trade? I wear your shoes. Here. What size shoe do you wear? 37. I don't know what that is. Six and a half. You got some small feet. You want both shoes? This is good. Let's see. Look, Annalisa trying to get her camera. I'm like a cramp. Do you break my fucking Manolos? No, I'm just kidding. These are really Manolos. Yeah, they're Manolos. You're making money in this podcast, huh? That's before my podcast days. Dude, this don't fit one. I'll try it. You just hang out on these all day long? Yeah. Sucks to be a girl. You don't like them? I feel these are really comfortable. I got to say, your shoes are a little bit sweaty.

34:03They are, but I put insoles in them because I have to do run club no more. My heel broke. That's disgusting. I'm sorry. Take the insoles out. Take the insoles out. You want these back? What do you think I'd do? Your feet are wet too, I bet. Let me see your feet. They're not sweaty. My feet are nuts. Do you think the insoles are real? Let me see your feet. They're kind of dirty at the bottom. They're not dirty. Well, that's okay. I'm not fat. Dirty. My shoes are off then. Okay, let's keep going. More shits off. More shits off. Bill and I won't be naked, but I will. A couple episodes ago, I talked about how my first boyfriend had a foot fetish.

34:32And then I thought everybody had a foot fetish. No. Because that was like my first experience having sex. So my second boyfriend, I'd be like, and he's like, what the fuck are you? He's like, it's fucking what I had about. That is kind of crazy. Yeah. I think it's pretty random to have a foot fetish. I do think a lot of sex fetishes are just kind of like, you just kind of end somewhere. I don't know if you're born with them, but you just kind of navigate to something. I think a lot of them are cultivated eccentricities. Like dating men in New York, they all have weird habits. They're like, oh, I sponsor a sloth facility in Costa Rica.

35:03No, I mean, just meet people with cultivated eccentricities because they're not interesting. And then they find a random thing. Or just, what's the word you say? Cultivated eccentricities. Eccentricities. Is that not how you say it? It is. I just didn't hear it. Eccentricity. I just can't pronounce words that well. Okay. That's the brain damage. We're never going to get to Aliceti. Ali Sethi. Ali Sethi, the musician behind Pissori, said that you seem to love South Asian culture and women. I added the second part. Are you planning on exploring Desi grooves and melodies in a more comprehensive way?

35:32Like, would you play with more instrumentation? I was just so inspired by India. Just the craziness. And I was there, I would say I was there around the time their real industrial revolution was happening. Like, there was still the trucks were on dirt roads, running over cows. Yeah. There's no women in the street after 9 p.m. And I go to Mumbai now and it's like, girls are dressed like it's Bergheim with like leather till like 4 a.m. It's like a completely crazy place now. So I saw like this transition. And you know, cool thing about Indian music now is that a lot of it is like artists making it themselves and not soundtracks.

36:05Just forever. It was like a hundred years of just, I should put the, like all these people, like just singing. Like music soundtrack. The same five people singing every song, right? Yeah, yes. And now there's like people like Handa Mankind and all these dope rappers. and like the kids are just like asserting themselves and it's really cool. I was there from the beginning. Remember like recording kids that were freestyling and make, I had a little band when I was in, I lived in Gujarat for a little while. You lived in Gujarat? Yeah. Did you ever eat in the Hotel MG? I lived in a, it's like talking about Ahmedabad, right?

36:31Yeah, Ahmedabad. No, I was in the sticks. Okay. It's a place called Ahmedabad on the border with Pakistan. It was not hotels. I've only been to India once. It's really hard to go to Visa as a Pakistan. It's like, even though I was born in India.

36:46I couldn't go. That's a much less exciting way to go. There's a long border, though. I probably could have found a little. They do the Waga border. Did you see the crossing? Yeah, I love that. They had some sketchy ones like a couple months ago. They were like starting to like have a little more beef. I love that, though. Yeah, a little beef. We should do that with Mexico every once in a while. We'll do a little skirmish. You're sounding very Trumpian. We just have a little show of power at the edge or whatever. I feel like the Mexican side of the dance would be so much better than the American side of the dance.

37:09The American side would be so boring. Do it with the Canadians. That's going to make America look better. Yeah, they would be real boring. Yeah, exactly. We could win that culture war. Although the best strip clubs in the world are in Montreal. I thought that, then I went to a really bad one last month. I felt like I fell in love so many times in Montreal, the strip clubs, and I was like, let me go see what's going on. And I felt like I lost, the air is gone. But that place is just a horny place. It's for Pornhub. It's just a very porny city. Canada, porny. They have a hot prime minister now. Quebec in general.

37:34Prime Minister Carney, he's, yeah, he's - He's hot? Yeah, I saw him speak this week during the UN General Assembly. He came to the council on the floor. It was UN General Assembly? Sorry? I went to, I'm a member of Council on Foreign Relations, so I went to hear him speak to the council. And now Katy Perry is dating Justin Trudeau. I know. Ah, fuck. Pretty fire. I know so many people who like kind of. Dated Katy Perry, like me? Oh, did you date Katy Perry? Oh, I did. I meant Trudeau. Oh, I did date Trudeau too. Yeah. That's going to go. That was a weird one though. Really? Why? Because I'm just.

38:02He's a prude, isn't he? I'm not into politicians. I call him Prudeau. Yeah. You met him before? No, I haven't. I think he's hot. He's kind of hot. You know who his dad is? Fidel Castro. No, is not. 100%. You think his dad is Fidel Castro? It's on the internet. What? What? This is misinformation. No, he is. This is like, what kind of crazy conspiracy shit are you reading? His dad is his Canadian dad. I took 10 before I got his. I would not be this active. His dad was going down to Cuba a lot. I had a real good relationship and his mom was hot. And his mom was like hanging out with Fidel. And then they had a fucking baby.

38:41and that is Trudeau. Okay, I'm going to take your$100 bet on Bill Nye and give you a million dollar bet on Trudeau. Google it. Did you look it up on the internet? Someone put it up. Dustin's going to look it up. It's a Trump claim. No, it was before Trump. Oh, man. Okay, let's move on. This isn't a politics podcast. Sometimes, no, it's really not. I did go to Cuba. We had a huge concert there right before when Obama was president. They had like a two-year period. We were all chilling there and we went and played for almost 2 million people. So cool. In front of the American embassy. I love that.

39:14It was pretty cool. That's awesome. Where would you like to go that you haven't been? Trying to go to like Pyongyang, North Korea? I'd like to go there, yeah. I've been there. Really? For eight days. Do you know there's a club there called the Diplo? No, fuck, really? Yeah, it's the only club in Pyongyang. What is the weirdest gig you've ever played? Did you play like Kim Jong-un's 40th birthday or something secretly? Kim Kardashian's. Kim Kardashian. Kim Kardashian and Jong-un. I went to a thing recently where it was like the Forbes Marketing Conference and they had a special guest from Live Nation.

39:42Everyone was so excited. And then it was Eddie Vedder. And I didn't know who Eddie Vedder is. Really? Yeah. I mean, I know who Pearl Jam is. I know who Pearl Jam is, but I didn't know who Eddie Vedder is. But like all these women were swooning for him, all these like kind of Gen X-y women. This is a Silicon Valley kind of thing? Yeah. And then fast forward to, I thought like within five minutes, I was like, this guy's a fucking rock star. Like I was swooning for him. Oh, he looks like a rock star. Like once a rock star, always a rock star, right? Like, do you think you had the swagger before you became Diplo back from the dead, deceased, toe-tag Diplo?

40:13I mean, I think I had just like a wandering, you know, kind of cowboy thing in my mind all the time. I just didn't, I could always be myself just on a trip, you know, I kind of feel like I'm always on my own journey. And that might be the only real swagger that I have because I'm still pretty dorky. Like I don't really have, like, I'm not like Eddie Vedder. Yeah. I went with Axl Rose once and he was like, I thought he was really cool too. Wait, you think Eddie Vedder is like a bigger star than you? As far as a rock star? Yeah. I mean, I'm not like, I'm a DJ, so it's like a new - DJs are rock stars now.

40:41It's a new thing, but we're not like actually cool. It's a pretty dorky job. Why is everybody a DJ right now? Does that really annoy you? Like every guy on Raya is a DJ. It's like a DJ slash attorney, a DJ slash whatever, DJ. It's just easy to do. And it also means you're cool. It means you're like functionally, I know what's going on. Like if you like write it as your other job. But does it actually mean you're cool, Wes? No, it doesn't at all. Yeah. I'm a good DJ. It's like my job. I really take pride in it. Yes, I know you're a good DJ. I love doing it. Like, I can pull up. And even last night, I had the best time at that corporate party.

41:10I was like, fuck it. Let's fucking, let's drop some Katy Perry. Let's do whatever. Let's do this. Fight some weird shit. And then I just have fun. And I can always kind of understand a crowd. Then I went to Marquina. I played, like, hardcore, like, more techno kind of vibes. And I mixed it with, like, Brazilian music. And then at the end, I was playing, like, I don't know, some weird shit. But it just was, it went off into, like, whatever I go, whatever journey I want to go into. So I think it's just accessible. All you need to do is buy this$1 ,000 thing. and I can teach anybody but they change every day.

41:39Now there's like one box that's called like Alpha Theta that just has a thing instead of having two CDJs or turntables. That's another old thing. I've seen Snoop DJ and he'll be just like smoking a J and pointing at shit that someone else does. Yeah, yeah. That's also DJing. He just is fucking the coolest person in the world though. He doesn't need to be a DJ but he can. But that's just...

42:04Hang tight for a second We'll be right back. Okay, how are we doing on time, by the way? I'm good. I got six hours. How much time do we got? We'd be here forever. No, we got to be. I think it would have been fun to have you and Bill Nye together. I'm ready. I'll stay till he comes. We'll need another chair. It has to kill me. But yeah, we should totally. No, no. Oh, my God. Kenny? I'm actually going to play him this random clip from Joe Rogan. I hope he knows me. Joe Rogan says, I know. I've like really tapped at your inner insecurity that Bill Nye, our childhood hero. How old is he, though? 69.

42:34What an age. That's a good one. What name? You've been 69 for five years. Okay. Anyways, a friend of mine, Ryan, whose Burning Man camp you played the year that you and Chris Rock ran away from Burning Man. I probably played like 20 camps every year. What's the name of his camp? Ryan. The name of the camp's called the Ryan. Oh, I don't know what his name is. Come to the Ryan. I've never been to Burning Man. Anyways, people call you the Forrest Gump of music that you play. I never heard that. Ryan called you that from the Burning Man camp. Ryan Gosling? Ryan, who you've forgotten from the one of 20.

43:04From Ryan camp? This guy's fake. You made it up. From Camp Ryan. No, but Forrest Gump of music. You play every single genre. You dabble in everything. Did do a lot in the movie. Do you identify as the Forrest Gump of music? Well, I'll tell you what. Forrest Gump is from Alabama. I'm from Mississippi. So we're kind of right there next to each other. Born there. But other than that, I will tell you one thing. I really love history and culture. That's the thing that I'm into. And when I showed my children Forrest Gump, it was the first movie that they understood history a little bit. It's a great film to watch American history.

43:37It's like in the music, that soundtrack like changed my life. That soundtrack is wonderful. I loved it so much. It's the only thing me and my dad like really bonded with. It was like, I'm a huge Karina's Clearwater Revival fan. Like everything on the Jimi Hendrix, that soundtrack is amazing. So it's like that movie is one of my favorite movies of all time. So I love that he thinks I'm Forrest Gump. He was good at running though, way faster than I was. Yeah, well, I mean, you're kind of like the Forrest Gump because you're playing music, you're running. But I think he didn't do it with purpose.

44:01He just kind of like fell into it. I feel like I do have a little more purpose than Forrest Gump. But you watched it with your kids and you said your dad watched the movie with you? It was the first time I saw my movie where I was like, the history that they, because my father also went to Vietnam and I really, it was a big turning point for my whole family because it meant a lot to how I was brought up. Because we're from a really low-class family in Florida. Fortunately, my dad had to go to Vietnam. And my dad went in his little early 20s, but he came back on the GI Bill and went to college.

44:30and because of that me and my sisters were the only like kids that ever went to college because my dad went to college and had money to put us in college so like it was like it broke a cycle of kind of poverty for my family right so probably inspired a grind yeah and it just it was and he you know he brought back the discipline from the army that really he instilled in me secretly yeah so i never really understood that until i was older and i people like why are you so determined how you always figure and i'm like that was kind of like what my dad and me and fought all the time when I was younger, but I still was like, damn, to get from point A to B is such a skill.

45:02That's what a lot of young people don't have. And I'm glad I got that from my father when a lot of musicians don't find their way to success. It's because it's not a clean path. It's not like a checklist you can get off of YouTube. It's literally just every day show up and fucking do it. How do you teach that to your kids? Do you teach that to your kids? Can I ask? Do I teach my what? Do you teach that to your kids? I'm trying. It's hard. I'm seeing them learn they're into music now without me they don't even want my help and I'm trying to teach them this is AI, you should do this they're like nah dad, we're good, we're just playing drums but I slowly saw my son I don't want to it's hard when you're a father because you just want your kids to be kids as long as possible so I just like my son's about to be a sophomore in high school and I'm just like man, just get over here go to this and that but I'm like kind of wasting my energy with him you know and then I was at the house the other day just hanging out like sitting there while he's playing kind of like on his Rubik's Cube and he got obsessed and he ended up doing he like after two days we're just like walking around the Rubik's Cube and he can do it in like 40 seconds now amazing so I was like okay 40 fucking seconds yeah so I was like he I was like he that's discipline so he kind of got his secretly getting it without me beating the shit out of him or something he's like actually kind of just I like this I want to get good at this I feel like so much of like what you end up doing as a kid I interviewed two 11 year olds are actually my favorite guests.

46:20I've had a lot of star fuckery kind of guests, but like... Am I smarter than the 11-year-olds? They might have been the wisest of anyone that I've had on the show. Well, that's good you say that because my kids when they were 12, they're writing love songs at like 12 and I'm just like, what do you guys know about love? But it's interesting. I asked them all about it. Our knowledge is a bit tainted, right? I think there's just something so pure and the reason I liked 11 is I think, actually, it relates to music when I was buying my own music. I was buying CDs. I was like going. And I felt like I had my own taste all of a sudden.

46:55Like I think you start having an independence, like a sense of self at that age or something that happened. Because you're buying this for you. Like you're buying that poster for your wall. This represents me. And I think my son doesn't even have that. He like only has like five songs on his Spotify. Really? Are they all by you? No, they're all, there's a mix. One of mine, one really had Chili Peppers. There's like a - Which Red Hot Chili Peppers song? He really likes... I saw them at Coachella in 2014. What song was that? And then he really likes Green Day. Oh, I love Green Day. He likes Green Day.

47:27Dookie? He likes Dookie a lot. That's great. It's all vintage. Everything is like... Everything old is new again. And he likes U2, Sunny Blade, he likes vibes. I think that you don't get a lot from electronic music you get from the bands. Like when we had... Our generation was so lucky to have, you know... I don't know if you were a Pearl Jam fan because you didn't... No, I'm like a little young for Pearl Jam. Yeah. You like Nirvana? Yeah, Nirvana I like. What was your favorite rock band when you were growing up? I feel Green Day was maybe my favorite. Oh, that's a good one. And I love No Doubt.

47:55And when I interviewed Gwen for - Oh, No Doubt was my favorite. I love No Doubt. I interviewed Gwen and Tony for the Sublime Doc and I was so obsessed. Because they were after. They were around the same time and they were both at Interscope but they came up in that kind of ska, surf, skate culture of California that is very similar to the kind of ska, surf, skate vibes of the 90s in Indonesia as well. Really? So, yeah, because, I mean, it's like you surf. Do people surf outside of Bali all around Indonesia? Yeah, but, like, that was the whole, that was, like, middle school. Like, you know, my boyfriend was on a skateboard.

48:25It was, like, people were graffitiing. It was just, that was so cool. It was, like, edgy at that time. I really love Indonesia. Super weird. That's where all boy bands are minted, by the way. Like, I went to some test for 98 Degrees, like, when they were, like, a test band. Oh, they go there to see if the market likes it? Yeah. Okay. Because that's where they take off at the beginning. When I first started going to Indonesia, my first time I went there, we had a major laser. I had a show there and I got kidnapped what? at the show by the police the police kidnapped you? yeah they took me off stage while I was DJing and dragged me into their car and like to hop the music and then the promoter's like what do you have?

48:56and they took me in the car and drove me to like a random street they just were bribing you? well the promoter had to call his cousins like I'm the prime minister guy and he walked over to the police with like his pajamas on like oh fuck so the police were trying to do some like hustle thing like we just the permits weren't pulled right like whatever it is and I was in the car just on my phone they didn't even care I was like I'm kidnapped because someone come like figure out where I'm at and then this guy came like all angry his pajamas like locked in the way get down and then they got and I had a walk to like another car and went back to the show there's always that shakedown it's not as bad as like I guess India might be the hardest speaking of India you did a song with Shah Rukh Khan yeah for Jab Harry Met Sally yeah I'm in the video dancing yeah my kids met Shah Rukh Khan and I have a picture of them with him it's really cool he basically got like denied at the MAC gala this year people didn't even know who he was He's such an icon.

49:46He's bigger than Tom Cruise. I know. He is Bollywood star, like global icon. That's okay. Shah Rukh Khan. He has a place in Goa. And I remember my friends were like, we want to meet Shah Rukh Khan. And he flew me to Goa. And we just like drank whiskey at his little villa there and talked about that song. Poor. Yeah, poor. Poor. Poor. I love that. We saw that video at the Houdini house in LA. One word for him. An interstellar planetary phenomenon. He's so good looking still. See, I love it. so what okay so you know who's a good looking indian guy but i don't know he might be out hrithik rosham had this crazy like hrithik roshan he had this crazy face it's like look like didn't look indian but he looked like this like like now he looks like one of all the wwe guys that are from india because there's a lot of them now it's so big there but he was like the first like yeah buff like that's like a thing everyone's getting into the manosphere everybody's like working out to hassan piker doing the thing the girls back in those days like i can't remember their names now but all the actresses around that time were like insane dimple kajal ashwarya I swear, oh my God.

50:42She was like, she haven't really had green eyes. Yeah, those are her eyes. I have a shirt, like a fan shirt of hers. It has like her. Her face? Yeah, it has like her name on it. It was like notoriously, it just has her and it's like beautiful. We didn't answer this, but where did you want to go that you haven't been? A lot of Africa because it's so massive. I've been a lot over Africa, but there's so much. Even the Sahara is so big. Yeah. You know? Sudan, I don't know, some crazy places that just like, what the hell is going on there? I want to go to fucking, you know I want to go? Where? I want to go to Yemen.

51:10By the way, there are so many parties all over the place. What do you think is hot and not overly played out in the party scene? What, cities? Part of the world, yeah. Oh, there's like a circuit. Do you know about this? It's kind of like Ibiza, Tulum, Canarios, the Hamptons. But don't you think that's all played out? It is, because when you go to Burning Man, it's the same exact people, and there's like nobody new. And when I first went to Burning Man 14 years ago, 15 years ago, I'm just walking, wandering around. I had a bike and listening to Dubstep or whatever. I'm just like, what the hell?

51:38It's just so crazy of a thing. And now when you go there, it's just like the same promoters and rich people from every city that just go there. There's nothing. There really was like an inept of culture unless you really, you can find it. But I've already like made my way to like the top of it. So I'm kind of bouncing around those places. And it's hard for me to like get integrated to like where the culture was anymore there. I'm sure it is. I just think it's dead for me. Yeah. So you don't go to Burning Man anymore, right? I didn't go last year, no. Or this year. You're going to go again? I think I did my time.

52:07Yeah. I think it served its purpose for me. No longer a burner. But you're going back to Coachella for the first time in 10 years, right? I'm going to Coachella, yeah. That's awesome. So you're talking about all the stuff I did in that day for Major Lazer, right? Because we started doing Major Lazer again, which is a really old project in today's. It's 15 years old, right? But people, I feel like young people know Major Lazer for sure. Then our songs come back. Lean On comes back on TikTok and becomes big again and some things. Then we have a new girl that joined the group named America Foster.

52:31and it's important to, I guess, to show kids, like we did all that streaming on Twitch for one day and we were on Oh my God, that's crazy. We did all that so we could, you guys are really, someone's getting arrested here. Crime, crime scene. Crime. We gotta look into it. Who's the mayor? Eric Adams. I interviewed him. I interviewed him. Is he gonna win? No. No chance, right? I mean, they're saying that he's gonna drop out this week. So for him, who's gonna win? Cuomo was at a dinner telling donors that he's gonna go out this week. Zaron, probably. Zaron. Why don't you run? Huh? Why don't you run for mayor?

53:03You think I could run for mayor? You're pretty smart. No, I think that I have too many skeletons in the closet. Yeah, but I mean, Trump, you can kind of like get rid of him, I guess. I don't know. I can't because Fidel Castro is my dad. I didn't want to tell you, but that's it. That's pretty bad. But once you were born in America, it was fine, I guess. I was born. I was born in D.C. and then I left when I was six weeks old. Then your dad's Cuban, but it's fine. But it's not fine. Okay, wait. Sorry. So you were saying this Coachella, you have to introduce. We're all over the place. We're microdosing.

53:34You got the fucking cops outside trying to break into this place while I'm doing the podcast, trying to take me and Bill Nye to jail. At least then he would find out who you are in jail. We're in jail together. You could be like a prison couple. We didn't hear for her. I don't know. Doing some physics, some science tricks. What's amazing about Bill Nye is so iconic, his visual, that I'm now picturing him in like an orange jumpsuit with a bow tie. Oh, that would do that for him. I quit this podcast. I'm out of here. Call Charlemagne. the fuck i feel like you have time we can just edit all that in there no no it's fine we're gonna leave it in it's just the reality well i don't know what i was talking about so i was trying to tell you about coachella major laser why you want to bring the project back to people is important brand awareness so like when we get to kaisa not streaming that's a big deal he's doing this poppython you talk about not sleeping i don't sleep that well but this guy's awake for 30 days kaisa not yeah and even at night when they put him in a bed you can just donate money and they slam the bed shut while he's in it and like spin it around and pour water on him.

54:31He got in trouble in New York. He like caused a kerfuffle in. A kerfuffle. Yes, a kerfuffle. You're DJing the San Vicente bungalow holiday party. I didn't know that. Don't you know that? How did you know that? Huh? I just found that out, but. What is that? I don't know what that is. It's in LA. I'm taking my kids out to Halloween. So it's like I just drive there and get some money, I guess. Yeah. How much do they pay for these things? Can you say? I can't. but it's a lot to leave my house I guess to go do something like that I like to do everything kind of party what do you do for free that you like doing shit I played for a lot I don't know I show up randomly to so many places just play parties sometimes yeah this podcast yeah I'm here I'm sending a Venmo to that guy with the hat I mean so many times like random bars like front raises for kids I mean just Burning Man things like that you just show up like 10 shows in a row just bang bang bang I mean I try to get the money when I can and then spend my energy on things that are that mean more profile wise like when we did the major laser you know show on the street or the one in london and for free that's that's that's optics is there a time in your life that you miss i don't miss anything everything that i everything that made me i'm so happy that i had like went through it like i think every moment of my life and i still have full control of my life and i i can still do anything like there's still so much to do and I'm so happy with all the bad decisions I made because I learned from them and the good things and the accidents that I had and then, you know, they're like, well, how'd I end up here?

55:59And then, like I said, you just got to show up every day and just try to do your best and make the best out of it. Two last questions, or three actually. One, who's like the next generation Diplo? Who do you see who's young, who's doing this? I would hope it's not just a DJ because I kind of like accidentally became a DJ, I think. do you think it's just chat gpt or some it's definitely an ai creation blob like person maybe like a really hot girl that is a avatar does everything avatar girl because i do consider myself sort of like a a cultural agitator like i'm i'm purposefully trying to like mix things up and do things weird that it's not just regular i'm not just trying to be the biggest dj i have the biggest hits i think my career was like trying to do something meaningful right the fabric of humanity but i don't know if there's that's another dj can do that not just like gassing myself but don't think that's like the purpose anymore of djing i think it's going to be somebody like another phase like something like an ai really because when i look at my what it's what what it's recommending yeah it's pretty perfect like i'm on youtube or i'm on spotify or whatever so it's kind of knows who i am it knows who you are who we are so it's like a dj's job is to sort of like surprise you with like what i always try to give this quote nobody picks up on it but a A great DJ can, you know, rock a party and make an amazing situation happen.

57:21But really, like the next level DJ gives you music you never heard and like, you know, kind of confuses you. But you like learn something. You know, that's kind of like what a great, great DJ can do. Yeah, they like incept. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Is acoustic ever coming back? Because acoustic music. I feel like acoustic music was so big. Do you know I heard Gigi Perez? She had a Sailor song last year. It was like just a current guitar. Yeah, that's true. Number one. She's awesome. But remember the days of like MTV Unplugged? And now it's like everything is very produced. I mean, Justin Bieber's swag was like fully like a room mic.

57:50I guess there's no one kind of music. Everything's just kind of, everything's everything. Do you ever think about like not making stuff because there's so much stuff out there? Oh, every day. And so why, what keeps you going? I just want to add to that whole garbage pile. Oh, shit. Of shit, because that's where I make money. I mean, I have a project called Doom Scroll that's literally just like me trying to make the craziest TikTok-ready insane Memphis funk music to just blow people's minds. is like released as fast as possible. Yeah, and you spell it all funky. Yeah, exactly. Elon Musk is your baby daddy kind of thing.

58:19Exactly, that's kind of like the whole idea is like what does the end of the internet sound like? And that's this genre. Yeah, okay. So I try to push, you know, every time I try to find something new. I love it. Okay, why the fuck has Jack Hu not gotten back together? Oh, that's an easy one to answer. Skrillex hates me. And I can't even, and if you even like follow me on Instagram and he talks to him and he's like, he'll unfollow you. It's a real kind of crazy hate that I just can't understand. Oh, wow. Yeah, I don't know. I don't really know what is the real issue, but we've tried to have some mediation.

58:50I tried. There's no on his side, but I just, I love the guy. You know, we were like a brother's, and I think I'm a bit of an older brother to him. I'm a lot older than him, but maybe there's a dynamic that didn't work, and it just was broken, but I just freaking love him. We had a whole second album. I mean, that music was, you guys had a whole second album. We did a whole second album. We recorded so many weird records with Charlie XCX, Lawrence and the Machine. Yeah, nothing else. It probably feels dated now, But we were really a good combo because I have real wild out-of-pocket ideas for pop music.

59:20And he just is, nobody's better than him at creating sound that just sounds like, what the fuck, you know? So together we had a great combo. I had every episode of Smart Girl Dumb Questions asking my guests like a dumb question they had that they haven't bothered to find out. I mean, yours is obviously whether or not Justin Trudeau was Fidel Castro's baby. Anything else that you have? Can we do, ask him to do a DNA test? but something that you yeah like what's a question that we could go help answer for you I think that this one I am pretty sure we'll get money I got money on it so okay it's a thousand dollars and then Bill Nye for me is a hundred dollars whatever a hundred dollars and Bill Nye we're good I'll catch up to you about it later my question is how do water mammals like drink water if they live in salt water like dolphins and stuff what do they drink I think they desalinate right that's a pretty complicated thing to do huh I like that question I don't know the answer.

1:00:13You've stumped me. Okay, we're going to find out. I love it. Like, manatees, that's a thing. They kind of, like, float into the freshwater to drink it. So, like, dolphins and whales. You're going to be a cultural anthropologist or a marine biologist? I just like manatees, but I was going to be a cultural anthropologist. You worked in a zoo. I did. What was your favorite animal? They're all pretty sad looking, but just alligators. It's so sad to see animals in a zoo. I saw one really awesome animal that I never saw again at the San Diego Zoo. It is the condor from Alaska called the Stellar Sea Eagle.

1:00:43And it's like taller than you. It's like an eagle that only flies for 20 minutes a day because it's so heavy and has a fine one animal. Does it wear manolos too? It does wear manolos. I knew it. It was like on a perch and it was like taller than her. Oh, I love it. Okay. It's a really cool Stellar Sea Eagle. That's a good favorite animal. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much, Wes. Thanks for putting up with this like loud, crazy vibe. No, it's nothing. I can't believe you picked it up on the mic. Yeah. I'm sad that you kept so many clothes on, but you know. I said my shoes were sweaty. I feel kind of weird about that, so I'm going to put it back on.

1:01:11No! Pants are going to go off next, too. Were they? Yeah. It's not too late. I got the, I mean, I have a swim set, and I'm going to yoga now. We can show the abs to compare to Bill Nye's. Yeah. Just kidding. No, really, show Bill Nye. Look at that. I got abs. Wait, let's look at your leg. Bill Bill Nye, come at me. You don't know who I am. Bill Nye. Thank you so much. You're great. What a trippy episode. And it really answers this question of how to be so prolific, which in Diplo's case involves lots of running, very little sleep, and a ton of peripatetic travel, which, yeah, is not necessarily a lifestyle I would recommend.

1:01:50And speaking of which, if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see behind me is South of France. I'm in Europe right now with Diplo, of course. I'm kidding. I'm here for a wedding, which is not my own. But while we're fact-checking, I should also say that Fidel Castro is not Justin Trudeau's father. That is definitely, definitely misinformation. And Diplo is though, as he said, a very good DJ, as he reminded me. But what I really liked in that episode was how he talked about not just wanting to be a hit maker, but trying to do something meaningful in the fabric of humanity. And what he said about AI, you know, being the next to him was wild.

1:02:27But I really think that his work has done that. And for me, it was really reflected in the diversity of it, the internationalism of it. You know, there's so many parts of the world and so many different cultures that he infuses into his work. And, you know, when I was doing the Sublime documentary, a lot of times I would hear this term cultural appropriation. People would ask me what I thought about that. And I would always reply that I think there's a lot of love and respect and homage in the work that was being done there. A lot of care for the music and a lot of love and dignity in that music.

1:02:59And I think that I would say the same about Wes's music. What I hear and see when I listen to him is a lot of love for the different cultures that he gets to experience. And I just love knowing that he kind of approached it with this desire to be an anthropologist or a documentarian. And I think in a lot of ways his work does that. So anyways, I encourage you to check out Diplo's work if for some reason you haven't heard it. You should definitely check out the song Purr that he did with Shah Rukh Khan for Jeb Harry Met Sejal. You should also check out his country album, Diplo Presents Thomas Wesley.

1:03:32And you should very much check out his music with Skrillex, which OMG, I'm so sad that they are never ever getting back together, it sounds like. Though I would love to hear the other side of that story too to know what happened, to end that bromance. But that's it for this week. If you want to know if Bill Nye knew who Diplo was and who won the bet, you got to tune in later this month for the Bill Nye episode. It's awesome. He is a national treasure and we have a great conversation about science, why it's so important we invest in it and his work at the Planetary Society, this awesome institution.

1:04:04Anyways, that's it for this week. If you like this show, please like, review, comment. Please definitely follow the show and encourage your friends to do the same. This episode was produced with Annalisa Cochran and Healy Cruz. It was recorded and edited by Desta of Wonder Studios. Our on-site engineer was Jared Soledin Vieira. And our theme music is by my great friend, David Kahn, who was discussed in this episode. I'm your host, Naima Reza, and I'll see you next week on Smart Girl Dumb Questions.