“I’m having a hip-hop day. I’m in the streets of Philadelphia, cashing checks.”
Wesley Pentz, better known as international DJ pimp Diplo, is in downtown Philadelphia looking for a bank. The same city where he made an instantaneous impact on the DJ scene as a driving force behind Hollertronix with DJ Low Budget, a raucous club night that grew into a mix of dirty south hip-hop, Baltimore club beats and random nuggets of '80s classics and radio hits. In between asking passersby for directions, he caught me up on his latest sonic escapades, from helping produce one of the best albums of 2007 (M.I.A.’s “Kala”) to his newfound love of Los Angeles. Here’s some of what he had to say.
What’s up with “Favela on Blast,” the documentary you were making about the underground scene in Brazil?
It’s still happening. We just need $100,000 to finish it (laughs). We have a lot of licensing to deal with. I’m going back in October to finish it up and try to sell it to make enough to pay the back end. You can go to favelaonblast.com and see some of what we’ve done.
Now that you have a record label (Mad Decent), who are some new artists that you’re excited about?
We’ve got these Jamaican kids, South Rakkas Crew. We just signed these kids from Canada, Thunderheist. There’s a new Philadelphia DJ called Paul Devro. And I’ve got this group from Africa that I’m really excited about. I’ll be producing them. They sound like an African TV on the Radio. Even though most of the guys in TV on the Radio are African, so maybe that’s not a good description! I can’t tell you their name yet though. Switch and I are putting a record out that we’re going to make in Jamaica.
What’s it going to sound like?
Between the two of us, we did like 95% of the M.I.A. record (“Kala”). So it’ll sound a lot like that, but with different dancehall artists instead of M.I.A.
From a DJ perspective, the latest Hollertronix 12-inch single, “#7,” might be the best one yet
Yeah, I did those with DJ Eli, a cool guy from the old-school days. We’ve been putting out loads of edits on the internet, and thought it would be nice to put some of them on record. We’re getting better at making edits all the time. Eventually we’d like to collect all of those joints on one CD, since they’re only on vinyl. That’ll probably happen after “#10.” I’ve got “#8” ready to go. There’s an amazing version of Smashing Pumpkins’ “Zero.”
Do you still buy records?
Yeah, I still pick up used records. I’ve been buying a lot of CDs though. I collect a lot of weird, newer stuff that’s only on CD. I bought loads of CDs in Russia recently. There are some crazy samples to be found on them. I did a song for M.I.A. called “Big Branch” that’s a bonus cut somewhere. It started as a sample from an old Russian record I bought the last time I was there. We’re talking pots and pans drum beats from the Balkans. The messed up part was that the actual Russian releases were mostly horrible. I had to buy these British imports that were collections of the best tracks. Here I am thinking I’m the first guy to do this—and there are already UK comps of the stuff. It was like a weird paradox.
What are your thoughts on Los Angeles?
I wish I could have moved there, but ended up getting a scholarship to Temple in Philly. When I visited schools in L.A. back then, it seemed so cheesy. I couldn’t get past all of the gloss and TV-ness of everything. But when I visit my friends there now, they mostly live in areas like Echo Park, and I love the vibe so much.
L.A. is happening. Musically, I loved that album Aloe Blacc put out on Stones Throw. I wish I’d done some work on it. There’s such a cool mix of kids (in L.A.), and everyone’s really grass roots again, just doing stuff themselves. The same is going on in the black communities of Philly and Baltimore. New York is a joke right now. It’s the same white T-shirts and kids trying to look like 50 Cent. But L.A. has a really cool soul.
Scott T. Sterling is Music editor for Metromix Los Angeles.
