Assistant Editor
For a brief time in 2007, Diplo was a blogger
Scribbling up his memories onto the Mad Decent website, Diplo documented the comings and goings of his newly birthed record label by filling the still active blog section with low res treasures.
Diplo and Rusko
MySpace era photos of familiar faces and tidbits of tour life gossip read like the diary entries of a frat boy. Twitter’s 140-character limit has quelled Diplo’s college humour to mere snapshots of the man who once described Pete Doherty as “babyshamblezface” after bumping into him and Amy Winehouse in an alleyway.
Diplo and Erol Alkan
It’s not all antagonising the superstars of the mid noughties, though. Dip shows us that he’s always had a finger on what’s about to blow up, in a post berating a 21-year old Skream for not answering his calls. “i called skream like 50 times tryin to arrange a meeting answer my fone call motherfucker!”. He sounds like someone from a start up who’s trying to head hunt a teenage coder.
Nowadays it’s difficult to separate the image of Diplo from the topless superstar who helped make Justin Bieber credible. After TaylorSwiftGate his social media feeds have understandably lost their spontaneity. So in an era of careful self censoring and clever self promotion, Wes Pentz circa 2007 is a joy to behold. Not a pec in sight.
We’ve got Wes posing on Rick Rubin’s scooter
Wes at his birthday party, paintballing with A-Trak
Wes drunk in the back of a cab with fellow Major Lazer producer, Switch
Wes climbing out of a 'second hand coffin'
Wes talking about how he made 'Favela On Blast'
The globe trotting life of a DJ aligns itself with luxury. We’re taught that to have made it means to be able to stand on top of the world, looking down on people desperately trying to get a photo with you. But there aren’t any Instagram pictures that document the time Mad Decent put on a show in India’s biggest slum, and Diplo's directorial debut on a documentary about Brazilian Favelas is rarely mentioned in interviews. People would rather talk about Justin Bieber.
In less than a decade, Diplo’s gone from the guy who shook up the Essential Mix by filling it with dancehall to the producer who helped Beyonce posit herself as a feminist pop star. He poured the sounds he found on his travels into beats that got picked up by superstars, in turn making him one.
We may never see Diplo re-don his blogger hat again, he's evolved into the Diplo that soundtracks political campaigns, triple platinum Diplo and the first dance act to perform in Cuba Diplo.
It's a far cry from the guy who blogged about spending a day off in India looking for souvenirs for his mum. It wasn't long until someone else had taken over the Mad Decent blog, leaving bossman Dip as the subject, rather than creator of posts.
But lets take a moment to look back on 2007 and appreciate the world that was - this one is probably a resounding favourite, posted by a fellow label mate:
“– My girlfriends old phone has the most SCANDALOUS inbox ever after we lent it to Wes for 2 weeks. LULZ!!”
Preach.
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