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- [00:02]
Diplo
You're listening to DraftKings Network. Baseball is back and the first pitch is on Netflix. The New York Yankees, led by seven time all star Aaron Judge head to the San Francisco Bay to take on Rafael Devers. San Francisco Giants this season kicks off with one exclusive opening night game. Watch MLB opening night the New York Yankees versus the San Francisco Giants live on Netflix. Wednesday, March 25th at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific
- [00:39]
Commercial Announcer 1
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- [00:41]
Interviewer
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- [00:49]
Diplo
Try it today at Starbucks. Spring is here and the shopping list is long. Time to make a Lowe's run. Buy three bags, get three free of stay green one cubic foot garden soil Plus Right now members can earn four times the points on an eligible purchase. Start spring off strong with these deals and more. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's. Valid for $3.25 while supplies last soil offer excludes Alaska and Hawaii loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. See lowe's.com terms for details. Subject to change point boosters subject to exclusions and more terms apply. One time only offer. These are my real. These are the teeth I was born with. Except for this one because it fell out because I got in a fight in Orlando like 20 years ago and then I used my fingers to put it back into place like it was dangling a little bit and it was like this. Like you'd say your teeth. Are we recording yet?
- [01:59]
Interviewer
This is Thomas Wesley Pence. You might know him as Diplo. And yes, we're recording. Continue your story. He's a multi Grammy winning art DJ producer and you can continue your story. Why did you have to push your tooth back in my face?
- [02:14]
Diplo
Looks great on this camera. Your makeup girl did a really good job. I look super like young and cool. I had a fight with this guy in the parking lot of like a dorm and he man, he headbutted me. That's like kind of cheating. And my teeth were like this and this one just went in like it went like this. So this tooth I went in and I was like, damn, that's gonna like really suck. But I mean I've got cousins with like missing front teeth. I was like whatever, I'll deal with it. But I went home and just kind of shoved it back in there pretty quickly. And maybe it's like when your finger cuts off and you immediately freeze it and sew it back on it. It, it stayed for a little bit about five years later, it started to get grayer. And then like eight years ago, it was pretty. Pretty gray. It was kind of like. It was hard to, like, it just looked like not.
- [02:58]
Interviewer
It was rotting.
- [02:58]
Diplo
It was kind of like it was falling out. I had to get a root canal. And they're like, what is up with this tooth? Just get rid of this thing. I was like, all right, cool. And I have a lot of gold teeth. I have, like. I had like. I don't know if you see it. I got like, yeah, probably eight gold teeth in the back. Because my bat. My. My. My mother and father, beautiful people, but they just didn't have a lot of money. We got, like, really bad feelings back in the day with that. Whatever material it is that's kind of cheap. So I had to get rid of these. These teeth after a while. And gold teeth are the best teeth to put in your mouth. Like, it's the best material that your body bonds with. So I was like, I like my gold teeth. So I put a gold tooth right here. For about two years, I had one big gold tooth in my front of my mouth. And it was just. It felt really cool. But, like, every picture it looked like I was missing the tooth. And then people just didn't want to talk to me. Like, I would have like to meet with people that aren't just like rappers or whatever. And they were just like, are you good? Like, my. It just looked like a. I looked more like a prospector that I'd look like a cool person.
- [03:49]
Interviewer
Were you getting into a lot of fights? You weren't getting into a lot of fights in Fort Lauderdale, were you not Fort Lauderdale, we.
- [03:54]
Diplo
I got into a lot of fights because in Fort Lauderdale, this is when I was younger. This fight happened in Orlando in college when I was at UCF for a year. Fort Lauderdale, though, is where we would go to school early because we walked to this middle school, Seminole Middle School. Me and my friend Sam Borkson is an artist and he's still a friend of mine. We would go to school early, like around seven, because we could walk there and the bus would take that long anyway. And we'd go to the back of the school and we would have the racquetball kind of course that we would play this game called Ass. Remember that game?
- [04:27]
Interviewer
I do not.
- [04:28]
Diplo
With the blue rubber ball.
- [04:29]
Interviewer
So the name of the game was Ass.
- [04:31]
Diplo
Yeah, Ass. So you go there with this. Blow this ball and you just 10, 20 people would play. We throw the ball and it would bounce. Someone grab it. And if you Touch it. It didn't grab it. You had to run to the wall fast. Touch the wall, and someone could throw the ball at you and hit you hard. And that would start a lot of fights. So we would go there early, try to get like one or two fights and just like, you know, and if you get the wall, you're out. But sometimes people hit you after you got like, yo, what's up? Why you hit me like that? And so you would fight them and. Yeah, I think I probably had like two or three fights a week.
- [05:01]
Interviewer
Really.
- [05:01]
Diplo
It was pretty good. I used to like fighting. This is when I was like 14. It was just kind of, you know, you just get. Meet up a little bit. Black eye, like, scrape, falling on the ground.
- [05:09]
Interviewer
Were you a good kid? Bad kid?
- [05:11]
Diplo
I was pretty bad. Pretty bad kid around that time. So bad to where I had to. I ended up going. In my eighth grade year, I went to Florida Air Academy in Merritt Island. It's Melbourne, Florida. It was like a. We learned to fly planes, and I was still pretty bad there, and I got in bad trouble. And then I somehow worked my way through a year of that in military school, and I became pretty. Pretty decent human being. I think it really worked for me. If anything, I learned. I learned how to be bad but not get caught. Maybe that's kind of what you do in military school, but you just. Can you just become a little more mature? I just needed to mature. I was not a good kid. I was troubled when I was a kid, and I was just moved a lot of places, and I just think I was wasting my time. And then military school, I got through it and I loved it. It was so cool. It was really diverse, and I just loved the music. We would go to the mall and, you know, we wore our. We wore our military outfits. I learned how to fly like a Cessna on a. On a simulator. And then I went back to Fort Lauderdale. I went to South Plantation High School. That was pretty rough. Pretty rough high school, that one. I went back to go visit. I was, like, surprised at how bad the area actually is.
- [06:16]
Interviewer
But I would imagine that military school was quite the culture shock. Have you had more culture shock than military school?
- [06:23]
Diplo
Well, the Florida. It wasn't like a licensed part of the armed services. It was Florida Air Academy. And it was mostly kids from Europe, some Pakistani kids, Indian kids. A lot of Caribbean kids went there because they wanted to be pilots. So they started there. And you could also get into the Air Force or end up being. There's a big connection of Caribbean Kids, middle class kids that go are pilots. Like Jamaica has an insane amount of pilots that came from there. So a lot of kids want to be. That's their, that's their dream. So you go there and you learn your basics of flying and then, you know, you go back and do a bigger flight school, whatever, and you can start flying like, you know, 18 years old, you fly planes and be a pilot on a major airline. But that was mostly why people did it. And then kids were just bad like me. And they got sent there and had to, they had to act right, you know, because the public school system doesn't really teach you discipline, doesn't teach you how to behave, doesn't teach you how to. You know, I went to public school my whole life, so it doesn't. It's not a good guy. My father love him to death, but he works very hard and I didn't see him very often. And my mother had two other daughters and I was a problem child. So I think that that school took a lot of time off their hands where I could, you know, learn to behave and become a good person. And I think going to military school and my father being a veteran, a Vietnam veteran, I think discipline is the one thing that I didn't realize I had until I got older and I implemented into my career everything I do, everything from being a father to being, being a musician. And that's the most powerful trait that you can learn to be successful. It's so simple, just discipline, just understanding, like the time that you spend matters, time management, all that things matter, like being consistent matters. And I think that's what I learned from the military.
- [07:59]
Interviewer
What are some of the worst jobs that you had before you found music?
- [08:04]
Diplo
Not all of them were that bad. I was, I was really loved having a job. Like, I didn't. I never had a job that just. I didn't like, shovel shit or whatever. I guess shrimping was a pretty bad job. I had a shrimp for my dad. He owned a bait shop in Daytona area in New Smyrna. So when I was out of between kind of college and high school, I worked for him a little bit. And I would have to wake up every day at like 2, 3 in the morning when the moon was the highest, and go out on a shrimp boat by myself with maybe someone else helping me. And I would just lower the nets and grab the shrimp and sort it. And the first, like month was pretty beautiful. You know, you're at just like, it was beautiful. I was like, I felt like I was Forrest Gump. I was just like. The moonlight was so big and sometimes it would rain. I'd catch some weird ass. I caught baby hammerhead shark and some fish that I don't even know what the hell. We're by Cape Canaveral. So there might be some alien type of shit going on. I was just sorting them out and there was some weird shit. And then after a while you're like, this job's really. This sucks to do this every day for like five hours and not sleep normal. And then I ended up going. I moved to Philadelphia. And I was like, let me just go try to try another. Try school again. And then wasn't that bad. Subway was pretty bad in Orlando. I worked at the Subway on Colonial Boulevard. Cause it was open till 4am and Orlando, man, I just love Florida. But I think Orlando's one of the worst cities in the entire world. Like, I've been everywhere. It's just so there's some weird shit going on over there. And we got robbed like. Like weekly. Like, we would just get someone coming in there. Cause it's open so late and someone just come with a gun. I would just hide in the refrigerator. They'd take whatever. And then. What's another bad job? Oh, I parked.
- [09:35]
Interviewer
That sounds like a pretty bad one.
- [09:37]
Diplo
Yeah, but no one ever shot me.
- [09:38]
Interviewer
I know, but I was I routinely hiding in the fridge. People with guns and. Seems like it should have come before shrimping.
- [09:46]
Diplo
It's. It's crazy that like, that was right before they started locking the money. Because when after a while there was like, you have the. The Dropbox. So when you have over a hundred dollars, you gotta put all the money in there. We didn't have that implemented until, like, middle of my. I was like, bro, this is. Saves us. We're not gonna get robbed. No one's gonna come Rob us for 17. Like, that's. But we would get robbed. Then people started like, that's all you got. And they stopped robbing us. Like, that's such an easy. Like, easy, easy fix. One of my favorite jobs, though, I only did this twice because I was really. This was this my. You could die. This job was during bike Week. That's another big thing. So after I lived Fort Lauderdale, I lived in Daytona area. And Bike week is a good time to make money. It's like One of the two times that people are in Daytona is the 500, which is this weekend. And Bike Week, huge event. Black college reunion. Spring break doesn't really happen there. And I would work at this place Called the Cabbage Patch. It's a biker bar, and it has coleslaw wrestling. It's still there. You can still go to this place. It's a small bar, but, you know, a thousand people would come and watch women wrestle in the coleslaw. So I park motorcycles and I get, like, good tips because some bikers are proper drug dealer, like, gangsters. And some of them, half of them are, like day traders or doctors or whatever like that. Like, don't just do it for fun, like cosplay bikers. And they would give you tips, like 30 bucks, sometimes 10 bucks. Most guys just give you a dollar. But I saw a guy, I did the one year I was like. I made like, $5,000 in a week. I was like, this is insane, like, tips. I was like, this is crazy money. The next year I did it, I saw a guy, just one bike fell over, and then 40 bikes fall over. And, like, the guy. The guy, like, got his ass kicked, like, bad. So I was like, this is a dangerous job because the biker guys don't play. That's the one thing we have in Daytona is, like, it's a bike. The gangsters are like, the bike guys. It's kind of up and down us one. They kind of. They just kind of run the drug trade or whatever. But it's cool culture. It's pretty weird. I just spent a week in Daytona, like, as a grown up, going to the 500, playing a show with Leonard Skinner. Just all the redneck stuff that I grew up doing. But seeing it kind of come into, like. Into, like, a new version of it now, because NASCAR was very exciting right now. Like, it was the craziest race I've ever seen. And it just feels like they finally got a little. They got a little pizzazz to it. They made it look a little cooler. And I think that it could be big because there's a lot of good stories in NASCAR. It's been kind of lost for, like, 20 years in the. In the modern culture, but it was really exciting this time to see all the people there. It was really cool.
- [12:03]
Interviewer
You said coleslaw wrestling as if it's a normal thing.
- [12:08]
Diplo
There's been wrestling, big bean wrestling, too, but the cold, that's up in Norman. But the coleslaw wrestling was in New Smyrna, and I think that they still have. It's a huge, like, plastic pool, and they feel. I can't believe how much coleslaw they get. And then the girls just get in there, and there's some. There's some Cute girls. Most of them are bigger girls because they're trying to win. But you should go check out. Wow,
- [12:31]
Interviewer
you mentioned Forrest Gump. I imagine you feel like that still. Shrimping is one thing, but as one example, please elaborate on this story. And I want any other stories you have like it. How is it that you end up doing a show from a hot air balloon and then running through the mud with Chris Rock, all as part of
- [12:54]
Diplo
one escape from where it was Burning Man. I think I'm just constantly like, my life, I'm a producer and I'm a dj. I'm a songwriter, but I'm really just. That's like the hobby. The rest of my life is a bunch of side quests. So. Yeah, I did realize when you talked. I did. I have mixed running and shrimping a lot. That's what Forrest Gump kind of did. I don't play ping pong, but that movie was one of my favorite movies growing up because it had a great soundtrack. Like, I really loved, like, it introduced me to Credence Clearwater introduced me to, like, disco. Just things that, like, it was the best of American music over 40 years. And I really loved Elvis was on that. And it was just such a great testament of culture. And I'm from. From the South. Forrest Gumpo is from Alabama. I was born in Mississippi. That's where I was born. And I was. Yeah, I was feel. I really feel an affinity to Mississippi for some reason, because it's really like the. I don't know, demographic and data wise, we're on the worst places in America.
- [13:51]
Interviewer
Well, it's the. It's the poorest place in America.
- [13:53]
Diplo
The highest, like the lowest literacy rate. Poverty levels are super high. It's. But it's really pretty. Like, it's always green. And I always remember driving through it, I was like, damn, this looks like the. It just looks like this. Everything's so green and just so beautiful. And then I think when I was in high school, my last year, I was in a creative writing class and it was probably the first class that I was really turned on to. I was like, wow, this is. I started reading a lot more. Like, I never really was a reader and they introduced me a lot of Southern writers. So I read Zora Neale Hurston. I don't know if you know, she is amazing African American writer from the early 1900s that was from Florida, from Eatonville, Florida. And I was introduced to a very famous Mississippi writer named William Faulkner, who wrote Absalom, Absalom Light in August. None of his books became films, like a lot of classic books. But he was. He won a lot of Pulitzer Prizes. He was one of the most famous writers of this century. And he was from Mississippi, and he made up a lot of this shit. Like, everything he made up. He created this genre called magical realism. And if. Are you familiar with Gabriel Garcia Marquez?
- [15:04]
Interviewer
Yeah, sure.
- [15:04]
Diplo
So Gabriel Garcia Marquez is from Colombia, and he was inspired by. He's probably a bigger writer, but he was inspired by William Faulkner because of the diverse. I think Columbia and Mississippi are very similar and like the African meets the Caribbean European heritage. And I just felt like the more I started learning about William Faulkner and where I was from and like, the cities of Mississippi and the history, I was like, damn, I'm really lucky to, like, be from this place, because that's actually the birthplace of a lot of American culture is the Mississippi Delta, like, music wise.
- [15:33]
Interviewer
And that opened you up to creativity, though. This is the first time you're thinking as an artist.
- [15:39]
Diplo
Yeah. Cause I felt like, wow, I'm from here. This is pr. This is America, like, at its center, you know, And I felt like I was inspired. Like, I can. This is my story too. Like, I want to keep telling the story. And I got into Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I saw like, you know, 100 years of solitude and. Which is a huge, you know, Netflix show. And he became. He's a much more popular writer. 100 years of cholera. I just started reading these books and I was like, I was into the idea of magical realism. A little bit of history, a little bit of what it means to be a north of South American. Like, just Colombia and Brazil and. And the American south are just so amazing places. And the culturally that what defines us. I just started, like, tapping into that. Like, I'm part of that. Like. And so going up, being from Fort Lauderdale too, in South Florida, I was like, wow, this is like I said to you, growing up in Fort Lauderdale and Broward was so. I was so lucky to do that because the diversity in Broward county gave me like, all of the. The understanding of what I do as a musician. Like, being growing up poor, middle class, embroward, and like, being raised on one side of your streets like a Haitian immigrant, other side is like a Jewish kid. There's Jamaican doctors. Like, you know, there's little, like, hillbillies. Like, that whole area where I lived in Plantation was just like, I went to the most diverse school I've ever been.
- [16:48]
Interviewer
And they're introducing you to everything. Trick Daddy.
- [16:50]
Diplo
Exactly. Trick Daddy. I love dancehall. Records. I was into, like, you know, Guns N Roses. I was into hardcore, you know, metal because of the kids there, you know, went to bar mitzvahs. I was like, what is the. What are Jewish people? I only knew bar mitzvahs that were, like, poor kids. Like, it was like a clown or whatever at the bar mitzvah.
- [17:06]
Interviewer
So there. There was no religion in the ceremony, just a clown.
- [17:10]
Diplo
Because I don't really know. It's like, oh, you turned 13. We had to get a president and be like, what's happening? It's like a party. And then, like, there'd be, like, a clown or, like, a magic trick guy. And I was like, okay, that's a bar mitzvah. And then I'm like, older, like 30. I'm playing bar mitzvahs, and it's like, Travis Scott's playing the bar mitzvah. I was like, what's. What is bar mitzvahs?
- [17:25]
Interviewer
You're getting a million dollars to just show up at a bar mitzvah.
- [17:29]
Diplo
I was like, I don't remember these bar mitzvahs when I was 13. But. But even all that. All that added up to what was beautiful about Broward and just being here. I'm not going to speak on Miami that much because I only go to Miami as a. As an adult, as a dj. I never really came to Miami when I was growing up because I always thought Miami was just Miami Vice, Just drug dealers and fucking alligators and, like, Cuban people jump off the boats and people stabbing each other and cocaine coming from airplanes. I didn't know what was Miami really. That is in Marino, just somewhere out there.
- [17:54]
Interviewer
You got it. Hooters.
- [17:55]
Diplo
Smoking crack in the bathroom. I don't know what was going on.
- [17:57]
Interviewer
You got it. You. You had it. You had it, right?
- [17:59]
Diplo
So. So it's all that. But even all that is, like, beautiful. I was like, that's great. I love this place. I love. I love all these stories because it's just, you know, when I tell people I'm from Florida, when I travel in Europe, either they're like, ew. Like, you know, like, they're like. That's the word. Like, you know, people from Washington state, wherever, they're just like. Or they're like Europeans that are like, that's fudgeing. I've read. I heard about that. Like, they're like. They're either, like, they love the fantastic elements of the south and Florida, or they're just like, like. And, you know, so you gotta, like, educate them a little bit. Florida's is weirder than you think. It's a lot more diverse than people think.
- [18:34]
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- [19:35]
Diplo
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- [20:31]
Interviewer
you articulate for us what music means to you? I know it's a broad question, but you've devoted your life to it. And I imagine, given that you're three decades in on the grind, that you must still love it and it must
- [20:47]
Diplo
still move you 100 I'm only doing this. I'm just for one, I'm very lucky to have this job. Like I would tell people, maybe the the making the Music side is probably 10 of, like, what I do, but the other 90 is, like, ideas. And the building of the. Of this, of the music and the creative direction is what I'm really good at, you know, Like, I'm really good at curating and. And being the right place, the right time, and exploring and investing my energy in. In different music scenes or learning. And that's all what I'm great at. The actual technical part, sitting down, writing a record, playing guitar, using a computer. It's not my favorite thing to do, but I learned how to do it well enough to get by. But luckily, being a dj, I'm kind of, like. It's pedestrian. I get to just kind of watch music move, and I get to kind of roll with it, you know, Like, I'm like, on the boat, right? Music's like a river, and I'm just kind of riding with it, and I'm stopping here and this and that, and we're just always on a ride, you know, And I think that's the main key to longevity, is just kind of riding with it, you know, and just. And if you're inspired, there's just so lucky. And I've always been inspired because I've always been looking at the future. I'm always like, what's this music? What's. Like, that's, you know, when people hate on something, I'm like, why? And I go to it, you know, like, whether it's in Brazil when I was making, you know, funk music 20 years ago in the favelas, or when I was doing reggae music when it wasn't popular, or, you know, country music when it was underrated, you know, five, six years ago, and mixing it with hip hop, whatever it is. I'm just, like, pushing to where people aren't and trying to, like, investigate that and, you know, curate that. And I think that's driven by being excited about music still.
- [22:25]
Interviewer
You've worked with Bruno Mars, Brittany, Bad Bunny, Bieber. Those are just the bees. You've worked with just about everybody. Beyonce is also. I can't believe I forgot that one. The highest gonna get me. She is the biggest of the bees. She's the biggest of the bees. But have you found yourself, in many of these instances, just totally awed, scared, weirded out?
- [22:51]
Diplo
Maybe in the beginning, I think my very first set, because even when Bieber was starting, I was working on his stuff. He wasn't even that huge of an artist. It was kind of like after Baby was in the middle, and I was just like, you know, it Was like a. I didn't think he was that gonna have this career that he has. It was kind of like between his transition from a teenager to a real artist. But Usher was probably the first one that I was like, what am I doing here? You know, because he, like, invited me to New York, and we made this song that. It's one of my favorite songs I ever made. It was called Climax by Usher. And it was like, he just. The amount of time that he gave me to, like, work on this and cared about it and, like, I was just taking. Being taken seriously as a musician was very odd for me because I just don't know what the I'm doing. So I was like. When he was like, we're locking in, it was like, falsetto. I was just like, I had to really, really grasp what am I doing here. I have to really make this project happen. And, like, feeling like a. A real creator, it was. Was. Was like a huge transition for me.
- [23:47]
Interviewer
You had an imposter syndrome inside of you 100%.
- [23:50]
Diplo
Because before that, I'm just like, you know, I didn't even have a fucking computer till Mia bought me one. I was, like, on a little PC and, like, samplers. Like, I didn't really know how to use a daw, like Ableton or Pro, whatever. People are using Fruity Loops back then. It was cool edit and acid Pro and. And I really had a hard time learning that. Like, I. I learned how to use it and I. You know, it was hard for me. But then you started like, oh, making music's not. It's not just like, sampling loops and putting a beat on it or whatever. It's like, there's songwriting, there's arrangements, there's, like, mixing, there's putting stuff in the right key. There's like, you know, making the snares and the. In the. In the vocals blending together. All that things I had to learn, you know, trial and error because I didn't have a teacher. So I did have imposter syndrome, for sure.
- [24:29]
Interviewer
You said Usher, though, because it was early. How about later in life where you've got your confidence, you've got your skill, but you're still like, how am I here with Madonna?
- [24:39]
Diplo
Part of the same as the next one, where I was like, really felt like an imposter because, like, I'm like a guy. Here. Here's my idea, guys. You know, whatever. Have fun with this. Like, I'll come back, whatever. I'm going to do some other shit. Check my emails. Madonna's like, where the Fuck. Are you going? Like, get the fuck back in here. And, like, we're going to. It was like 10 hours of, you know, locking in. Like, she's a real. She's from the old school era. Like, we go, we book a studio, make a record. It's every day for five weeks, 12 hours. It's like, really working. Like, I'm just kind of like, make a beat, go get a sandwich or whatever. I go to, like, you know, watch the tv, whatever, go DJ something. It was like kind of like a. I'm just kind of winging it, you know. But she was like, the. A real artist. Like, she was like, had a lock. Lock in with me. But I have a little bit of both. Like, I don't mind doing that. Like, I did the same thing with bts. Like, I just did, like, all last year, like, really locked in with them, try to finish their album. It was like, just one of the hardest things I've ever done, you know, because there's so many influences beyond those seven boys. Like, there's seven men now. There's the label behind it, there's all the songwriters that want to be part of it. There's the cultural relevance, the what sounds, you know, what's going to be interesting for them all to use. And, like, trying to put all that together was very difficult, but it was. I love doing that. I'm like a proper case of adhd. Like, when I'm. When it's chaotic and I'm under pressure, I really. I do perform at the best. I'm like Reggie Miller, like, you know. You know, fourth quarter. I, like, really need everything to fall on top of me, to survive, to make the best stuff. That's kind of, like, always been my mo.
- [26:05]
Interviewer
One of the reasons I was excited to talk to you, and I don't guess that many people would cite this as a reason, is because of the amount of wisdom you once expressed in a very small sentence that I'd like you to elaborate on now when you just said masculinity is a prison.
- [26:23]
Diplo
Yeah, man. I guess for a lot of men, young ones especially, we didn't have a lot of Internet or a lot of access to information, right. We only had, like, our fathers and, like, TV and, like, what it means to be a man. So I think I'm one of the first. I'm 47 years old. I'm probably one of the first guys that was really on the Internet research, just learning things. I just loved. I just loved learning because of music. I was like, finding myself in Record stores, going through liner notes. And I felt like the Internet was finally like, wow, this is freedom for anybody. You can literally find whatever you want and be. Explore things, right? So when I said that, I think it was at a time when there was probably a lot of energy that, you know, before men were able to talk about simple things like their feelings or like, what it means to, you know, be heartbroken or what it means to have a job, what it means to have a responsibility, what it means to be a father. And a lot of people just. Men are supposed to just raw dog life, right? We're just supposed to hide it, be inside of it and just, you know, go through it. My, you know, my father did that. He didn't have Ritalin or, you know, his Anex. He was just like, war's over. It's time to go, you know, raise this kid or whatever, get a job. And as you get older, you're kind of just trained to just be this, like, machine, you know, kind of like just be on this routine thing and you have things that you're not supposed to do, you know? You know, you can't really explore anything. You can't really be different or try things. And I think my whole life I've just been able to just be open about what I want to do, what. What is possible to do. I think, you know, I've had success because I tried everything, like, oh, I'll try all kinds of music. And I've been able to fail and succeed. And I think before, you know, 2026, when we do have the freedom of thought and freedom to be whatever we want, I think you had kind of like, men didn't really find information on, like, what it means to be a man. I think that being a masculine person is. Just had a set of rules. And I always felt like when you don't think about that, you have a lot more freedom to create whatever it is.
- [28:13]
Interviewer
Well, how and where though, did you start upon that evolution? Clearly, that's not something you're thinking of as a teen, right? Like you said.
- [28:20]
Diplo
But I was always another thing that was probably a blessing for me was that my father moved many times, so I never locked in with a social scene. Like, I never Fort Lauderdale, my little gang I was in was probably the last time I had like a friends, you know, like a friend crew. After that it was like military school, Daytona Beach, UCF job. It was like I just moved everywhere and I was like, Nashville for two years. I never really had friends. I was kind of on my Own, like just trying to be myself, you know, and then when you have that and you're like, kind of like on your own, it gives you the freedom to. People just care too much about what their friends think of them or what the Internet thinks of them or whatever it is. And once you're by yourself a lot, just developing something, you have a. You can have a sense of yourself that's so much more important. So talking about my son, like, he just. He got his first phone at 14 and he never had Internet really before that, it was like some mobile Games or whatever, iPad. And I think I'm so proud that he was able to find out who he was without outside influences, because that's what we have a lot now with the Internet. A lot of people aren't able to become something that they. Without these outside, you know, pressures telling them what they should do, what they shouldn't do, who they should be, who they should love, whatever it is. And. And I think my son now is 15 and he just kind of like, he's so. He has so much confidence. That's the one thing I can't really. I can't force him to be the best athlete or the best musician or I'm not a tiger dad like that. I just want him to always feel like he's good enough to do whatever he wants to do. Like that he's like, that's the main thing I can give him because I can't wish upon all this success or whatever from what I. It's so hard to do what I did. It was like a combination of luck and determination that. More luck than anything. So all I want to give him is just the confidence to just know that he could do anything.
- [30:06]
Interviewer
Well, you're still running in very young circles, and I imagine you've seen and felt sort of what's happened to young people inside of the addiction of the Internet. Loneliness, anxiety, depression, all up. Do you see those things as you're moving around the world?
- [30:24]
Diplo
Yeah, I mean, once you're comfortable being by yourself, which is so difficult too. Like, once you feel like. Like, you know, you're always going to be lonely, you know. You know, you're always. Depression can creep in, but a lot of people just let it just take over, you know, a lot of times they don't see, like, get up, get whatever it is, like there's something. Everything can change, you know, you're only a prisoner in your own body. Like, you can wake up, do a trip, take a drink, whatever it is. If you sit there and let the whole world just like run on top of you. You might feel hopeless, you know, but I feel like everybody, I tell them, even when we come back to running, your body's the only. Every day when you wake up, that's the only thing you can change. Like you're. But you can't. The problems that are out there, the politics, this, all that stuff doesn't matter. Like, you are physically yourself. Like you can get up and if you go for a run or whatever it is, that's the hardest thing you're going to do today, then you can. You're starting to win, you know, it's so easy. But if I teach anybody anything, it's like being okay by yourself is the beginning. Then once you do that, you can really build relationships with people because you know who you are and that's the best way to do it. If you're not honest to yourself, it's really hard to be honest to other people.
- [31:28]
Interviewer
So you said, though, you haven't really had friends since you had. That you were running with. Since a gang of kids. You don't mean literally a gang, right?
- [31:35]
Diplo
It was kind of a gang. We were kind of a gang. Yeah. It was kind of like we played football together. We like, you know, shoplifted together. I mean, I have, I have friends, but I've never felt like. I've never felt like I was locked in with like a. A social scene. People moved to LA a lot of times. I moved there as an adult. I moved there when I was like 29, 30, and I had my first son there. And I feel like people moved to Californ and they're just like, I don't get it. Like, what? You don't. I don't really meet people and I'm like, man, this is where you come just to get some money, whatever. You know, this is kind of like, don't take it too seriously because the industries that we're in are just, they're very surface level, you know, it is hard to meet people, you know, and especially when it comes to California, Miami is a lot the same. If you move here, you don't have to.
- [32:14]
Interviewer
Well, the place that I was headed though is, I imagine. How many days a year are you on the road?
- [32:18]
Diplo
Probably over 200.
- [32:19]
Interviewer
So you've had to get very comfortable with the fact that you are often alone or traveling, you know, with. With people who might not be friends, they might be co workers or helpers, but you're alone a lot, right?
- [32:31]
Diplo
I've had more dates with my Tour assistant Aiden, he might be there somewhere than any woman. I mean, I've really never been on a date, really. I feel like I'm always having dinner with my tour team or friends that I have that I visit. I've been really lucky because I'm in my career, a later phase where I can kind of decide what I do. I came to Daytona to play the 500 because I could be with my dad, be my sister. I could bring my friends from California to Daytona and be like, like, I know you guys think about this, but check this out. Everybody who I brought to Daytona this weekend was like, mind blown. They were like, what the hell? Like, they were like. I brought my Italian friend from. He owns some restaurants in la, he's from Rome. And he was just like, this is the craz. I've been a burning man. This is like rivals. How insane this little city is. So I get to choose things where it's like, how do I every day, how do I get smarter a little bit or how do I experience something new? And I, I'm lucky. But in the beginning, yeah, you're like flying to random part of Germany. Then you're like going to a shitty place in Cleveland and you're just, you know, doing your job as a DJ or a musician. And sometimes it's like, what is, what am I doing? It's kind of like feel like a waste of time. Unless you're building something. You don't know what you're building until you really look at it from a. From the outside, you know.
- [33:36]
Interviewer
Do you have a lot of items that are still on the list? Like, I need to get over here to do some learning. I need to see this place.
- [33:43]
Diplo
I just wish I could speak a couple language fluently because I do feel like that's a. That's just like a.
- [33:48]
Interviewer
It sounded like you gave me a little Spanish there. It sounded, I thought for a minute it sounded like you threw an accent on something that made me think that you knew some Spanish.
- [33:56]
Diplo
I could speak a little Spanish when it comes to really necessary. But I mean, I'm not gonna tell a person my dreams and my thoughts. That's the most important thing. I could speak a little Japanese and I lived there for a while and that was probably the closest language that I feel like I grasped Portuguese a little bit. But I want to be able to, you know, have thoughts and, and I want to be able to communicate with people because those languages you're talking about
- [34:20]
Interviewer
ideas, the hard stuff in the second language is, is a fluency Music really
- [34:24]
Diplo
matter if you don't understand. Like you can speak Spanish, but a lot of people that speak Spanish don't really understand Puerto Ricans, you know, if, you know, it's difficult every, every, even, even people from, you know, if I bring someone from England and like show them some Kodak Black records, they don't. We speak the same language, but they have no idea what he's talking about. So there are intricacies in languages. I think I get the culture sometimes, but I'd love to, I'd love to learn the language. As an American, it's like I feel like we all would take for granted how lucky we are that we have this like language that took over the world. And it's disrespectful. Sometimes I really wish I could be fluent in more languages.
- [34:57]
Interviewer
So languages is the bucket list stuff. You don't really have things that you want to go do.
- [35:02]
Diplo
Like I want to go to Mars. I want to do that. I'm waiting. I think it's a one way ticket for me, man. So I got to get some shit done.
- [35:08]
Interviewer
Okay. Yeah, so you got to keep on the grind. Make a little more money to make sure.
- [35:13]
Diplo
Once my kids are like out of school, I'll be like, I'm gonna. I might not come back. Kids. I gotta. I'll be like Christopher Columbus. Just like. We're just on a way. We don't know what's gonna go on. But I'm gonna take this boat two months, I might not come back. You know, I'll make sure they're safe though. They're good. But I want to go somewhere. I want to be like a. I want to go see something no one's ever seen before.
- [35:30]
Interviewer
The grind of it after three decades. Do you feel your age, man?
- [35:37]
Diplo
I wear the. I wear the whoop. And I think I'm very healthy. And it still says I'm a little older than I am, which is kind of sad because I really feel like I work hard to be younger than I am, but I just live a really. I don't know, for normal people, maybe a lack of a better word is I live a harder life. You know, My strain is a lot more every day because I stay up longer hours and I try to exercise as much as I can. I sleep not as much as I should and my stress levels are probably high all the time from the jobs I do. But I'm really good at coping with all that. So I think sometimes I feel young at heart, you know, I can't. Hopefully the Technology will make my body better as I get older, but I just feel like I live at the highest level I can every day, and that's the best thing. And to stay healthy, I don't, I do feel young, though. I do feel young. I don't feel like I'm almost 50. I'll be 50 in two years. Like, that's crazy.
- [36:27]
Interviewer
Well, the hours you keep though are crazy.
- [36:29]
Diplo
It is crazy.
- [36:30]
Interviewer
I mean, they're just nuts. I don't know when you're sleeping, how much you're sleeping, but if you're somebody who's at speed space, you know, and Miami's got, you know, these 20, 24 hour club, like I don't, I don't know how you're doing, what you're doing.
- [36:42]
Diplo
I don't. People got to realize we're DJs, we're not. We don't stay up all night long to play at 8 in the morning. We don't stay up all night to say, to play sunrise sets. We go to sleep and we wake up before. Like when I go shrimping, I'll wake up at four in the morning to go catch the shrimp at when the moon's the highest. Only really sicko people are going to stay up for like 24 and there are people that do that. And I, I, man, I could, I condone them. It's like this. That's hard work.
- [37:06]
Interviewer
Well, it's just drugs, isn't it?
- [37:07]
Diplo
The drugs help. It keeps you awake. I can stay awake for a long time without drugs if I'm happy, if I'm excited, if there's something going on, if it's like sometimes it gets hard, you know, I don't really drink hardcore energy drinks. I don't really do drugs. Not anything that keep me awake. I like some drugs, some, some things that I help, I think make me smarter, I feel like. But you know, most times I just feel like my hardest thing in my daily routine is to go to sleep. But getting up, like getting like, let's go DJ this party. I've never have a hard time like turning it all on. That's the one thing DJs are really good at. We're able to like, you know, whatever bad mood we're in, how we feel, we're able to like, bam, let's go do this.
- [37:45]
Interviewer
You know, because it's still exciting to you, right?
- [37:47]
Diplo
It is, but it's also our job. Maybe it's just second nature, you know, like you don't have to tell, like a emergency room nurse, like it's like she has to go up and do her job. Like we're the same thing. We have to. If we want to be great at what we do, we have to give it everything thing. So it's not hard to learn that.
- [37:58]
Interviewer
Do you have to come down from a show?
- [38:00]
Diplo
That's the hardest thing. Yeah, it's the hardest thing sometimes because. But the cortisol levels are high. It's just high. It's high energy. It's. It's everything. You know, you're having all these people express happiness with you and you. It's addictive. You know, a lot of, A lot of musicians, you know, probably suffer from bipolar personality or, you know, manic depression sometimes because the, the. It's ups and downs. There's so much, you know, you got to understand that's just like the lifestyle. When people are brand new to it and they're. They're touring musicians, it must be very difficult for them to not find alcohol or drugs or love or whatever as a coping mechanism because it's just so extreme than what your life was before you went on the road. But I've been doing this for so long. I just. I still love the idea of traveling, meeting new people, you know, taking my father with me, bringing my kids with me. I just. I'm very fluid in the way I travel. So it helps a lot to not find, you know, times where you're like in find, you know, stuck in the despair or whatever. But every musician definitely has a lot of feelings because we wouldn't be musicians if we didn't feel everything. That's why we're creative. So if you can find. I don't have as many feelings to say the next guy that might have problems, but I, I know what he's going through because we all have that. We all, as creatives, we always. We just feel a lot, you know, that's why we translate it through our music or our writing or whatever.
- [39:23]
Interviewer
You mentioned anxiety as one of the feelings. I was. You said a lot of anxiety in the doing of what you do, and I was surprised by that. Just because you've been doing it for so long, I would think that you have the dragon by the collar.
- [39:36]
Diplo
I don't have the fear of not performing well or I don't really care at this point. I've done it so many times. You're gonna get what I give you when I'm out there on stage, whatever, music wise. But I think just the over. Overabundance of responsibility that I have, sometimes I get Anxiety because of a father of many children. You know, the businesses I have to. To run the. Every day there's news this and that. You know, there's so many outside things interfering that. Yeah, I can't. I can't lie and say I don't have anxiety. But I think I'm very good at putting it into something. I think somebody. I think it was. Maybe it was the actor that was in Fallout. What's his name? Water. Walter Goggins. I think he had an interview, I was listening to him where he said anxiety is like a tool. He kind of likes when it comes on. Like it kind of like gives you some motivation to get out of it. So it's like an. It's. It's an inspiration. You know, it could kind of. It's. If you can kind of tap into it, it's powerful. I think anything that's. That could be a crutch. You could kind of.
- [40:37]
Interviewer
But you don't have performance anxiety anymore, right?
- [40:40]
Diplo
Sometimes I'm like, damn. This is. I didn't expect this. Like. I mean you might, you know, I might pull up to a show and I'm not sure what's happening. And I'm like. I kind of thought. I. Because I do a lot of different type of music. You know, I've. You know, I played in like Nigeria my first time. I was like, I don't know what this crowd's gonna be into. You know, I did my best and it probably wasn't the best, but first time in Jamaica, I remember played this club. Me and Switch, we played this club in New Kingston. It was called Starts with an A. We had a show on like a Tuesday night and we just bombed so hard. Like, we just didn't. Because we don't. We're not playing like the Jamaica. You got to play these quick mixes and everything. We're trying to play our records and it was just like, you flop, you know, and you go back and you do it better the next time. You know, you always change. That's the cool thing about DJing. If we do it so many times, you can learn so quickly.
- [41:24]
Interviewer
Well, that. I mean, failure is just learning in disguise, right?
- [41:27]
Diplo
100. If I was like, if I really. If I really wanted to win every night I would have a pre recorded set and I would just. Just run it, put some visuals. But then I would not be inspired. I would be very bored and I'd be fake up there. Like, do you like this one? No. I like to be like, what about this one? I like to Surprise people and try things. And I like to read a crowd. And, you know, tonight I'm playing the Food and Wine Festival. It's. It's going to be a little more Miami style and, you know, maybe a little more elevated version of, say, like, live or whatever. But in Daytona, I played after Leonard Skinner, so I was playing proper redneck anthems and like, you know, mixing like, you know, classic rock with some trap music. And then, you know, when I come back for Winter Music conference or my music, I'm playing a proper deep house event. And I'll be doing another dance hall party with Major Lazer. It'll be like a dub reggae party. We're doing a baby. So every night I'm so lucky that I get to try new things because I'm a music fanatic. So I get to. I love that I get to switch. Switch to styles all the time.
- [42:19]
Interviewer
First thing that comes to mind when I say you at the center of the most moving, moving performance you've ever felt in your heart, man.
- [42:29]
Diplo
It's probably a hard one to answer, but I think I can give you some beautiful moments, you know, like some sunrises in some places where you just feel connected with people and you're just, you know, that's the. You know, you're never gonna live past some of those. A Burning man set or whatever, where you're just like. You're the. Everybody's waiting for this. They don't know what they're gonna get, but you have to give them something beautiful. You know, I've done a lot of those, but I think probably the most moving moment I've ever had was my mom passed away two summers ago and I was playing in. I think I was playing in Sicily or one of those. I was a club, Fifi Club. It was like a nightclub. And my. I didn't tell anybody. My crew, my mom, my cousin was trying to text me, but he had the wrong number. And I found out my dad called me when I had dinner that my mom had passed away. And I didn't tell anybody in the crew because I was like, I gotta. I'm gonna fly. I told, like, my two managers, like, hey, can I get this flight to Orlando tomorrow morning? Just get me out of here. Like 6am I didn't tell anybody. We had, like, a bunch of us. There was like six of us. And I just went to the show and I. I DJ'd, like three hours. I just didn't want to stop DJing because I didn't want to be by myself. So I played this whole set. I was, like, crazy. I was, like, just starting to play records that just felt, like, gave me goosebumps, you know, I didn't want to leave the. The stage. And it was. I was, like, like, about to cry the whole time, like three hours. But I was like, damn. This is probably the best thing I could do right now, though, is like, go through this, have a good time with this party, go back to my room, you know, call everybody, you know, just kind of, like, meditate a little bit. But it was like, I didn't want to not dj. I wanted to, like, get through that night and, you know, just do something that felt like a release for me and just kind of make something that made me feel happy again, too. So that's probably the one moment where I was like, that was all emotions, you know, for myself. When you have the energy of the crowd, it's always different. Even the very first time I played Stagecoach, maybe I was like, what am I going to do here, people? It's like country. And I remember we. I was so drunk, I don't even remember. I was, like, going on stage, and I'll be honest, I was pretty drunk. And I was like, God damn, I'm the best DJ in the world right now. And I was like, brand locked in. And, like, it was the first year of Stagecoach, so, like, nobody knew what. What even a DJ was. And then it was like, Lil Nas X came out, we did Old Town Road live. And then, like, Sam Hunt was like, I want to come. I was like, oh, I could dig up a Sam Hunt. He played him out and sang a song with Thomas Rhett came on. I just was, like, playing for 15,000 people. Just random songs that people in the an audience were coming up and singing. I was like, damn. I really like. Because people were just kind of mad I was playing Stagecoach. They were like, what are you doing? You're not country. You know, country music is probably the one genre where I got the most backlash. Of all the things I've done, all the music I've done is the hardest. It's really the hardest one to really get accepted in.
- [44:58]
Interviewer
I kind of ran you off the road, though, when you were thinking of moving performances that you'd witnessed. So if there's inspiration for you there, please. I didn't let you answer the question perhaps that you wanted to answer, man.
- [45:11]
Diplo
Maybe coming full circle because you miss Beyonce. Watching her do Coachella was like. Was like, probably the best concert I've ever seen. There's like, three, but her Coachella performance because I wrote some songs on Lemonade and like, bro, it was just like the whole experience of those songs I'd done. And she, her music director, just blending with old school things. And then she had like the black marching band out. It was just like an experience that she really understood the culture of, like, what it means to be Beyonce, what it means to be from Texas. And she really put it out there that like, kind of like Bad Bunny at the super bowl. You're like telling a story. It was like I got goosebumps watching Bad Bunny. You know, everybody. I don't know how people are mad. I mean, okay, you don't speak Spanish, but God damn, that was like a really amazing show considering how bad the game was. It was like we were lucky to get that out of it. But, man, I don't know Prince. I saw Prince play before he passed away at, I think it was the Fillmore in San Francisco. He played these like stand up shows where he just did like 20 shows for small crowds over and over again every night. And I'm sure he just like loved doing that. So he was like locked in with audience. I'm lucky to see him. There was something I just seen. I was like, yo, that was the best show I've seen in a long time. Where were we? I saw Tom Petty play his last show at the Hollywood bowl and back to Florida. Mark Ronson hit me up. He's like, hey, wanna come to Hollywood Bowl? I was like, who's playing? I was like, tom Petty. I was like, I mean, I'll pull up. I don't really know Tom Petty's songs. I got there and he played like a Roadrunner song. I didn't really know it. And then he played like 40 songs and I knew every song because you don't realize you're from Florida. I was like, I'm Tom Petty's like
- [46:43]
Interviewer
in my brain, like, lying.
- [46:44]
Diplo
It's like locked in. I was like, God damn. I was like, I didn't leave. I was there for three hours and then he died that morning. He was like. The news was like, he passed away that morning. So I saw his last show in, in la. And another thing, I like, I'm really proud when people from Florida do things. He's from Gainesville, so he's cool. I love Tom Petty now. Thinking back about it, anybody from Florida, I love them from Kodak Black to Tom Petty, Jim Morrison. There's a band called Ass Suck I used to love. They're like a metal band. They opened for Marilyn Manson when I was in like high school.
- [47:13]
Interviewer
Ass suck.
- [47:14]
Diplo
Yeah, Morbid Angel. I used to love metal and so Tampa.
- [47:17]
Interviewer
They must have spent so much time coming up with that name.
- [47:20]
Diplo
Ass U C K. One of my favorite bands in high school. It's sick. Merch D aside, I mean if you like metal, Florida was the spot. It was like good metal, good hip hop. Miami Bass. Oh my God, I love Miami bass music. I love DJ Icy. I love breakbeat, Magic Mike, Uncle Luke, Uncle Al. I love bass music. Your little one grew three inches overnight. Adorable. Also expensive. Sell their pint sized pieces on Depop and list them in minutes with no selling fees because somewhere a dad refuses to pay full price for the clothes his kids will outgrow tomorrow. And he's ready to buy your son entire wardrobe right now. Consider your future growth. Bird budget secured. Start selling on Depop where taste recognizes taste. Payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details.
- [48:10]
Commercial Announcer 1
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- [48:40]
Interviewer
What do you regard along your 47 years as the emotional landmarks that cracked you open like that just changed who you are, altered your path, made you
- [49:00]
Diplo
damn a couple things, man. I think Philadelphia, moving there and just being part of that music scene, like that was a scene where I felt like I had a family there too. Like I was part of the scene where it was like spank rock and Santi Gold MIA because she would come there. We worked on music there. Just this little shitty Phillies that's like a dark place, you know. Like I think Sun Ra had a, had a quote that he's like, he's a famous free jazz guy and he lives in Philly for a while and he was like, God told me how to go the worst place on earth to make music. And that's where I went. He was a Philadelphia based jazz musician. But if I wasn't for going to Philly and just having to rough it, like get by like really. Because there's no. I didn't have any money. I was like working and I was work. I was working at a school and being a teacher and then just, just seeing what hard Work does like, pays off with like a couple ideas, like, you know, making my own parties and making mixtapes and like learning how to be a human being and, and run a business. And I was so lucky to be there at that time. While the music was really exciting at the time, we had Quest Love on one side, we had like some cool rock bands. We had like these awesome venues and the rent was cheap and people were just creative. And MIA coming down there and she just changed my life. You know, working with her, like, her having. Putting faith in me and putting music together with me was like, you know, if I didn't have her to give me that jump start as a producer and as a. As a creator, I would never be here. My first son being born was. Was huge for me because it made me like really have to lock in. Like, that was when I was like, I have to. This isn't. It's not my life anymore, you know, so everything mattered a lot more. And that's like. I think a lot of people don't realize the power of having children. It's not just like doesn't drag your life down. It really makes it another life, you know. And I think that was a huge step for me, those two things. You know what really affected me as a kid was the Challenger shuttle blowing up. It's crazy. I was living in. I was living between Fort Lauderdale and New Smyrna Beach. And I remember we walked outside. This is the. The shuttle that Cape Canaveral, and it blew up and I was like 7 or 8 years old. We had to walk outside. We're gonna watch this teacher go up into space and it just like exploded. And I had tatted on me because that was like one of the first memories I ever had was like watching that. And that was like one of the craziest. Florida, that's really Florida, you know, that's
- [51:16]
Interviewer
young to get mortality blown in your face.
- [51:18]
Diplo
We were like, we had to go outside and watch it. And the teacher was like, everybody go inside. You know, that was one of the first memories I had of like, whoa. Like, life is like. It's crazy out here. And it's such a Florida thing, you know, because we always have the. We have the. We have the Canaveral up there. We have like Kennedy Space center, which is something. That's our license plates. And we always, you know, it was the thing by my. My parents house. I don't know, there's a lot of. There's a lot of stuff. I think maybe going to India as well, probably Blew my life. I have so many touchstones. But India, my first time leaving the country was going there and living there like for on $6 a day and like meeting people and just being part of the world. You know that you, when you like give up all the comforts of America and you go there and you're like. It makes you understand how much your work really is valuable. How lucky we are to be here in America and going back there. I was back, I was back there in November and we did the same thing I did when I was 20. We rented motorcycles and rode around the highways and the cities. A group of me, group of my friends that travel and it was like, it was, it was back to that feeling where you just. All the luxury we have here when you're like locked in riding a motorcycle around somewhere like India, the cities, the traffic is crazy and everybody, every movement in your body matters. Like that's really, that's as close as you get to meditation for me.
- [52:32]
Interviewer
How long did you do that for?
- [52:34]
Diplo
This trip we did like five days, like probably between five and nine hours a day like riding bikes around. But man, we rode to the insane places. Like we rode to like parts of Seven Sisters, which is like the, the, the northeast corner by the border of Myanmar and Bangladesh where you can ride around, you'd like to parks where there's 400 rhinoceroses, you know, Then you like little city where like you have these like home cooked meals and most beautiful sunsets and it's just like there's so much of the world that we don't. It was like when you, when you're in America you don't travel. It's just, you don't get, you don't understand how crazy this, this planet we are on.
- [53:11]
Interviewer
What are the details you most remember about being most broke?
- [53:17]
Diplo
Man, it's probably when my son was, he was born in October and November. We were, me and his mom were just living in like an apartment in Los Feliz because back when you were a songwriter and you're young, you don't have a, you just, they, you fly out to LA and they put you in like a little home, like a like model apartment where we had like a little place that we're just there. We didn't have any money. We just made like Thanksgiving dinner. We had like chicken nuggets like shaped like dinosaurs. And I remember just being there like I gotta get a house because I gotta, gotta feed this kid, you know,
- [53:50]
Interviewer
it was like, oh, but that's cause you're scared Right. You're scared of the responsibility.
- [53:54]
Diplo
You're just like, ah man, I gotta like, like this is because I'm living such a, you know, I don't mind living like a wild west guy, like on a motorcycle.
- [54:03]
Interviewer
You could do that in Philadelphia though. When it's just you though, this is the burden of responsibility. It's the responsibility of parents, I think.
- [54:09]
Diplo
But also when you, you realize how many problems come from being broke. Like you really like when I, the older I get and the more I don't let it. I also live pretty frugal like life. I don't really like, I don't take jets, I don't. I own a car really. I like, I'm pretty chill. I wear like used clothing and stuff. I don't really like, I don't buy jewelry anymore. I don't, you know, I just. When you realize how much problems it is when you don't have money, how much pressure there always is, like what's next? And then people don't really realize how many, how much Americans have to deal with that all the time. And you know, when you do know it and when you have that in your life, you're like, that's what it's like. You don't take anything for granted. I think a lot of kids, if you don't come from having a little hardship, it's probably hard to live a good life because you don't realize what you what how to, how to utilize.
- [54:53]
Interviewer
Why are you frugal? Is it to be not materialistic? Is it to be spiritual or I just don't care.
- [54:59]
Diplo
No, I don't really need anything. I'm just like everything I do, I feel like now that makes me happy is like being with my family or you know, traveling or seeing something. I'm never like I need this necklace or I don't know, I don't really know. I don't really. I never felt like that, that motivation. I just feel like moments with people are the most valuable thing.
- [55:19]
Interviewer
I have experiences. But I've got to imagine though, I mean your wildest dreams looked like what when you music. Because oh my God, it couldn't have been anything close to this.
- [55:31]
Diplo
I just didn't want to have a job. Cuz I did it. I did. I did a couple job like I did. I could work a subway, I took tickets, I was like a. I delivered flower. I did all these things where I was like God damn, I want to work for something that every day when I finish I feel like I made something, you know, I didn't just make money for a CEO or something. I didn't make, you know, somebody else rich. I wanted to, like, make something that it's meaningful. And that was music was the. Was the only way I could do it.
- [55:53]
Interviewer
It. Tell me the dinosaur. Tell me about the dinosaur that you're named after. Like, what. What is that all about?
- [56:01]
Diplo
Well, I was really obsessed with paleontology as a kid. Like, I was really into dinosaurs.
- [56:05]
Interviewer
You were gonna. You were gonna be that correct?
- [56:07]
Diplo
That was the thing that I, in high school was like, that's not a real idea. That's crazy. That's like, not even a job.
- [56:12]
Interviewer
No, let me be a dj. That's not a job. What I'm gonna do is be a dj.
- [56:16]
Diplo
Even. Even weirder. I ended up going to get my. My. I got my degree in anthropology. So I was really into. I wanted. After the dinosaur thing didn't work out for me, I was like, I want to be. I want to work for National Geographic. I want to travel and I want to take photos. I want to make doc. I want to, like, document things. And I was like, not going to India. I want to, like, document stuff in Florida or Mississippi. I want to, like, go back to. I want to, like, lock in American culture. I want to, like, you know, document it and be part of it. And I want to, like, show people didn't care about money. I just wanted to be like. I just was obsessed with. With. With culture as like a. As an idea. And I got all the way through school, graduated from Temple, and then I applied to. For film and anthropology school at fsu. I got accepted. I would like to spend a year off. I worked in Italy. I worked at Colors magazine. They. They hired me there for somehow. I sent them, like, an application and they were like, you're pretty weird. They flew me to Italy. I worked there, made some cool stuff for 90 colors of Benetton, learned a little Italian, sent a. An application fsu. I got accepted to grad school and I was, like, working. They were making music, trying stuff, you know, living by the skin of my teeth, like, barely paying rent. My dad called me. He's like, so excited. He was like, you got into grad school? Like, I can't believe you did that. Like, he was like, so surprised. Like, how the did you get into grad school? And I was like, dad, I gotta tell you, I think I'm gonna be a dj. I like this dj. He's like, yo, get the ear. He was like, so pissed off because it was like the Most crowning moment of his life. Like, yo, my son made it to. With, like, no help. He, like, did it himself. And I was like, dad, I'm gonna be a dj. And he was like. I think he hung up on me. And then it took him, like, another five, 10 years to really see me be a DJ. He was like, really? Like, even now he's so proud of me. Like, I remember at the Leonard Skinner show, he was like. With this. My cousins and stuff, he's like. Like, isn't he good? He was like, isn't he? I was like. He was really. He's such a kind, nice guy. I'm. I. I really won the lottery with my parents. Like, I, like, got so lucky with two great. Two great parents.
- [58:18]
Interviewer
I don't think you answered my dinosaur.
- [58:21]
Diplo
But that's the thing. Okay, so that was the. That was where it started. I loved the diplodocus. At a. At a point in time, it was the biggest animal on the world. Longest dinosaur. Blue whale's a little bigger than him. I was obsessed with, like, the size of this dinosaur. So there was this girl that gave me the nickname in high school, Diplodocus. She called me that. I don't know why. She had kind of, like a funny face. She kind of looked like a giraffe. So I used to call her. She had, like, these lips that were like a giraffe when you eat, like, leaves and stuff.
- [58:49]
Interviewer
So she'd call me Terrible Diplodocus.
- [58:51]
Diplo
Yeah, she was. It was like a girlfriend kind of. We just made fun of her a lot. And, you know, she gave me that name. And I was, like, doing little parties in Daytona and, like, Orlando, and that was, like, the artist name I picked. And I made a little mixtape, and you can find that. My first album is called Diplodocus. It's not called Diplo. It's called Epistemology Suite. It's like a little mix cd. It's on Discogs or whatever. And then I got signed to Ninja Tune on that mixtape. And I changed my name to Diplo. Cause it was too. No one could pronounce Diplodocus. And then that's been it. That was, like, 30 years ago.
- [59:26]
Interviewer
You've mentioned how close you were to your mom, how lucky you are to have your parents. You lost your sister. Sister and your mom a month apart. How did that change you?
- [59:38]
Diplo
Well, my mother was sick for a long time. She was. She had a. She had bad. Bad lung problems. She smoked her whole life, so she had emphysema, and she Had. She had to walk with oxygen. And my sister also had, like, a lot of health problems. She was diabetic and very overweight and very unhappy and. But she was so sweet. Like, Amy was, like, one of the most beautiful people I ever met. Met. And my mother, honestly, she was living eight years longer than she should have been because I think she, like, loved my children so much, and she was, like, living so long to, like, meet them, to spend more time with him. My sister died. My mother just kind of like, she just. I think she gave up. She was like, my sister. My sister died, and she was just kind of like, this time, you know, she want to be my sister. I feel like she kind of left. So it was kind of like. It was difficult, but it was like, I'm so happy my mother got to see my children that grow up so
- [60:38]
Interviewer
altered. You, like, obviously, it's a painful thing, and I'm sorry for your loss. I've been talking a lot over the last couple of years after losing my brother. There's a lot of gratitude in it now that I got to say goodbye, but it has changed me. My life perspective is different.
- [60:58]
Diplo
Well, I think my mother passed away. My son. I was like. We came to the funeral, and it was so beautiful because they were so, like, adult there. My son was probably, like, 12, but he went and saw my mother's, like, body before because we didn't. We didn't show him. This is a crazy. But he was like. He was like, I want to go see her and say bye. And it was, like, so powerful for me to, like, see that he. He was, like, grown. Grown up enough to see her and, like. But I think my mother was, like, the rock at our house. So when she passed away, it was kind of like. But she lived a good life and she had, like, children who loved her. But when she lost her daughter, she was like. Like, her life felt like it was a little bit. There wasn't much left for her, you know, so. But she. She lived a lot longer than she should have to be part of my life. I think she was, like, my biggest fan.
- [61:47]
Interviewer
I was gonna say her belief in you was something that you still carry, right? Yeah.
- [61:52]
Diplo
My dad was always, like, kind of like, you know, he was always like, what are you going to do? He never really believed. My mother's like, whatever, man. You're, like, the best. Like, she was always, like, putting me on. So
- [62:03]
Interviewer
the phone call that you've described here with your father seems like a crazy telephone call where he's very excited about your grad school accomplishment. And that's when you're deciding to tell him, yeah, gonna go on this crazy pursuit instead.
- [62:21]
Diplo
I don't remember the phone call my dad brought up to me like two years ago. He's like, I just didn't even care at that point. I was so, like, focused on. I was like, God, I gotta make music happen. If I don't make music happen, I wanna. I don't know what's gonna. Like, I just can't live like, this is it. This is like my dream, you know, if you have a dream that you believe in so much, you're gonna, you know you're gonna do it. You know, if it's all you, if it's the only choice, you're gonna make it happen no matter what.
- [62:45]
Interviewer
But the things that you're describing. I don't know how innate your creativity is, but everything you're describing sounds like I have stuff inside me that can't be locked in a subway fridge by gun toting men. I need to. Like, you're talking about National Geographic photography, You're talking about Philadelphia music scene and jazz. That comes from pain. Like, everything about you is creativity.
- [63:08]
Diplo
I think that I believe believed in myself because I was. All those things I was talking about, like, my creative writing side, like, just learning about where I was from. And I just felt like I was special. Like, a lot of people don't realize if you tap into like, who you are, like where you came from, where your parents came from, everything you have is like different than everybody else. If you really, you know, put everything into that and like, that's you. It's so powerful. Once you've realized you are like the one, one of a kind. When you feel that way, I feel like that's the strongest brand you can meet. You can have a million different ways for your A R to tell you this, that. But if you, like, just make it for yourself, like inside of you, like, this is me. I'm special. I think all the things I grew up around and being around, I just channeled all that. Like, yo, this is why diplo is interesting. You know, he's. I did my work in the. In the cultural side. I did my work, traveling, my research. And I love music and I learned how to make music, I learned how to play music. And I. And behind it all, I had my parents and like, where they were from, and I had like back to William Faulkner and I had like, you know, being Volusia County. I still love, you know, Orlando. My dad was growing up In Belglade. I went to go visit where he grew up and all these things. I was like, wow, this story is nuts. Like, I'm really special. Nobody even asked. It's like, I'm not like, I didn't. I'm not like a prince. I didn't, like, live in, like, a cat. I'm just like, these are little things. But I was like, yo, this is. My story is great, and I'm gonna keep writing it. I feel like once you find that when you realize you're, like, the author of your story becomes a very powerful tool to keep it going.
- [64:35]
Interviewer
Diplo.com is where you go if you want tickets. Tour dates. Diplo's run Club. You've mentioned running a couple of times. You're very big on meditation. You're very big on physical activity. In fact, I've read stories about you here in Miami running a half marathon and then running straight over to space in order to do a show after a half marathon. Diplo's Run Club. That is meditative for you. The act of running.
- [65:05]
Diplo
I mean, man, it's the easiest way. I'll tell you what. My ADHD prohibits me to actually meditate. It's just so hard for me to, like, sit down, get that ball of light in my heart, put it to my. Whatever. Whatever the speaker says to me, I'm like, bro, I can't. I can't. I can't do it. But, like, riding a motorcycle, running, those things, or even surfing is one of my favorite things to do. Like, sitting on the water and just being by yourself, Yourself. You know, all that stuff is meditation. You don't have to, like, do transcendental meditation. I tell people that all the time. It's great if you can get that. That's probably the most powerful way to do it. But if you can't reach that, so many other things in your life just are. Are able to get you to that point. Just putting your whole body out there with no distractions and doing something, you know, if you channel it right, anything can be meditative. You know, I feel like running is the easiest way to do it, because you can't. Once you start running, you can't. That's it. Your whole body is. The mechanics are going together, and that's beautiful. So anybody can do it.
- [65:58]
Interviewer
But the mind is both a blessing and a poison. And I imagine you have difficulty stopping and slowing yours down. I do, too.
- [66:07]
Diplo
It's just always noise all the time. I mean, that's the one problem with being creative is, like, there's the voices. I'm not like hearing crazy voices, but there's always noise, there's always ideas, there's always something. I'm like, damn. Like last night I came home from dinner and I was like, yo, I gotta make this idea. Like, I had it that my. My mind all time and I didn't go to sleep. I woke up before in the morning, went back to my computer. You know, that's. If you have an idea, man, make sure you write it down, get it out there. You know, even AI, like, whatever, dude. What's cool about these AI opportunities? Like put a little small idea in there. You don't have a full formed idea. You don't have the patience to write something for three hours. Put your basic stuff in there and see what it comes up with. And then, oh, God, that's gonna inspire you to finish something.
- [66:47]
Interviewer
But what's happening there? Is it that you don't want the day to. What's happening? That there's inspiration and opportunity everywhere. Like, why you're still a grinder. You don't have to do it this way anymore. You can cut your schedule in half. No matter how much of an economy you are or how much of a pressure guy you are, especially if you're living frugally. You can slow it down. You clearly don't want to, right?
- [67:12]
Diplo
I think I just, like you said in the beginning, I'm still so inspired. Like, I've just, I've been really lucky to be this generation where I don't know how old you are, but I was born. If you're born between like 78 and like 82, where a certain thing is called like, it's not a millennial. It's like a zillennial. I think it's the name of it. It's literally a special, like four years where we were the. We had analog, we had the vinyl, and we were the first people on the Internet. So we have this like, weird connection with both sides. This. I'm part of that generation and a lot of my older friends that are the same age, we all are, like, lucky because we were literally. When there was no data, like, there was no. It was like everything was analog. The world was. And we, we. We operated in that world. And then we were right. When the Internet started, we were like, wow, we adapted quickly. And I think that is probably another really powerful tool that I have that I'm able to see both sides. So that being said, when everything happens, technology keeps moving forward and there people are like, ah, we got this is that I'm just like, yo, let's run with it. Like, everything is a tool, you know, Everything's a tool to use. If you don't believe that, eventually you're just going to be kind of, like, casted, as, you know, it's the ones who are riding with it go forward. Everybody else kind of like, yeah, you can sit back and protest, but, I mean, it's going to move on without you.
- [68:29]
Interviewer
It's a cool story. I really appreciate your honesty and the fact that you're so open about sharing it. Thank you, sir.
- [68:35]
Diplo
I'm only me. I got nothing. You know, I can't. I got to just give it all out there.
- [68:39]
Interviewer
Thank you, sir.
- [68:40]
Diplo
Yeah. Thank you. Two teams, one cup. The primetime stage is set for the tgl. Presented by sofi. Finals los angeles golf club versus tigers. Jupiter links. Keep up. It's playoffs. Tune in. Monday, march 23, 9pm eastern on espn2 and Tuesday, march 24, 7pm eastern on espn and on the espn apple.