Pitchfork

When we called up Diplo late last week to chat about what he's been up to recently, he was crawling through New Jersey on the Chinatown bus between New York and Philadelphia. It was an appropriate setting for the DJ/producer/musicologist, being that he's always on the move, traveling the globe in search of new projects and new sounds.

Just a few days ago, Diplo announced his non-profit Heaps Decent program, which aims to reach out musically to underprivileged youth all over the world. The first single from that project, "Smash a Kangaroo", is on iTunes now.

We chatted with Diplo about Heaps Decent, his Mad Decent label, the various artists he's collaborating with, his work on M.I.A.'s forthcoming album Kala, and an intriguing iTunes EP.

Pitchfork: How did the Heaps Decent project get started?

Diplo: I went on the Big Day Out tour in Australia. I've been to Australia before, and I think it's the best place for my label, Mad Decent. Kids are into it, we sell records, and we get invitations all the time for shows and stuff. I had been fascinated with underground hip-hop and Aborigine kids. I have a friend whose mother works for Indigenous Affairs. I'm always getting these offers from labels and sponsors [to use their equipment for free], so I was like, "Let me put that stuff to use, let me reach out to the people and see what happens." I felt like I could use my name, if nothing else, and people wouldn't mind giving me free shit. It took a while to pester them, but like Apple and Serato and a lot of people came back and were like, "Yeah, we're totally into it."

We raised money. Justice DJed parties to raise funds for it. A lot of people reached out just to show people how easy it is to do something that's not so selfish. I think a lot of kids would be interested in doing that. If you're going to go take a vacation in Brazil, why don't you spend four or five days doing some workshops? You can bring over your old APC controllers and drop them off here. It's a way we can throw a lot of our wasted energy into something that's progressive.

So I rounded up shit, and I had someone else help me with the kids there, and we put together two trips: one in the Outback [Maningrida], and one in the jail [a New South Wales juvenile justice center]. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but a lot of the music came from the jail. [In Maningrida] it was, like, completely indigenous kids and it's really, like, jungle stuff. It's really like a refuge. It's out in the wilderness with a little stream of technology; we'd bring out Ableton Live and we had to go unlock everything at a library so we could go on the internet. In the jail it was more white kids and mixed-race kids, but they seemed to take more from the project than anybody.

Basically, nobody has ever come to the jail besides the police and the stupid social programs that go there. They've never had a DJ, someone who actually cares, who was into what they like. A lot of times social programs for kids that are like "Learn About Rap Music" will be, like, some 50-year-old dude that was on MTV back in the 80s that lives off of social programs now.

Pitchfork: These kids you're working with live very far away from urban areas, and, seemingly, outside influence. As big as hip-hop is globally, how does it get to someone in the Australian Outback?

Diplo: I just think it's really amazing, the way that the media reaches these children now, what they get. All the kids were obsessed with N.W.A. and Tupac, things that really relate to them. But the only hip-hop they're gonna get from the government-sponsored programs is really bad underground hip-hop that doesn't have anything to do with their lives. Because they live hardcore lives. You can buy whatever weapons and bullets you want at the local grocery store because they have to hunt. In the neighborhood that I was in up in Maningrida, up in the Outback, and the jungles up in the North, their cars only run on airplane fuel because it was too easy for their kids to get access to gasoline and become addicted to it. They lost a whole generation there huffing gas. Also, there's no alcohol allowed in the community. It's under lock and key from the police.

They all wear Yankees shirts and stuff that they get second-hand, so this was trying to connect the dots to them. Trying to let them make their own music and be able to keep current with what they do. We'd go in there with Serato computers and the kids were able to DJ their own music. I wanted to give the kids more immediate access to new music.

That's what the real project was. I didn't want it to be, like, learning to produce; I wanted to DJ with the kids and show them how to download music for free and be able to have access, make their own mixtapes and burn their own CDs. Because that's what we all take for granted. With what I do, I don't pay for music anymore; I'm a DJ, I get instrumentals and a cappellas sent to me by the labels. So I just want to even the playing field a little bit.

Pitchfork: Tell us about "Smash a Kangaroo", the song you made with the kids, which is available on iTunes now.

D: That was actually recorded in the jail, so we didn't really have the proper studio, just hand-held microphones and stuff. It's stupid and raw and everything, but that's just what it was like. We just had fun. All they listen to is really gangsta stuff and Akon-- "Locked Up" was a big song when we visited the jail. I think they just wanted to do a parody about being hard and gangsta, and that's how it came out. It's a really funny song.

I worked with iTunes directly because they helped to get us some computers to give to the kids, and they're going to do a way to download it that's going to go right into the studio's bank account in Sydney. So if people want to pay 99 cents a song, it's going to go into helping that project more. That's what's important, because the kids can keep on making music without the help of other people, and then it goes right back into the project.

Giving the kids confidence is the most important thing, because they don't have any self-confidence at all. From when they're born, they're told that they're second-rate citizens in a country like Australia. They'll talk and have fun, but when it comes to having a microphone and performing, I've never seen such shy kids before. So it was kind of cool having them open up after a couple of days.

Pitchfork: What's next for Heaps Decent? You're taking it to Brazil, right?

Diplo: Well, I'm in Brazil all the time because I'm doing this documentary. We're going to buy a building in a favela for a studio. I think a place like this is going to be sound and safe because everybody's going to respect the community organization. It's like the city halls of the favelas.

I think that's the only one I can work on now because it's manageable; I'm always down there working. I think I could do one in South Africa because I think there's a lot of input there. I think M.I.A.'s going to do a tour of Australia in September, and she's going to do some stuff there as well, in the little studio that we have.

I'm trying to imagine where would be another good place to open one. We worked on similar projects in Philadelphia when I was a school teacher six or seven years ago and I think stuff here works pretty well, but now that I've got a break and a name from the DJing, I think it can help generate some attention to it.

Pitchfork: Besides Heaps Decent, what other projects have you been working on?

Diplo: I'm going to be back in Brazil, and doing tours and the festivals in Europe. I only have five days off. [With] the label, Mad Decent, I'm just developing some new artists, like Blaqstarr. We're doing a 12" that comes out next month with him and Claude VonStroke and Switch and Drop the Lime. There's a band I'm working with named Thunderheist.

And I'm putting out another record in August, with Switch. We're recording the record in Jamaica. It's world sounds and crazier electronics and doing a lot of voicing. Then me and Switch are doing a tour around America in September. Just me and him bringing a new kind of ... I don't even know what it's called anymore, just house and club and sort of trying to break all this new music. And then I'm just producing some things. I'm producing some stuff with Santogold; she's from Philly so we work really well together.

I've got an EP that's coming out only on iTunes, a little covers EP that's kind of funny. It's like new house and club mixes of songs, like Hollertronix-style, mash-ups and shit. Not really mash-ups, but like crazy edits and new songs. I did a remix of Justice's "D.A.N.C.E.", a remix of "You Used to Hold Me", this Chicago joint,. There's this version of Daft Punk's "Harder Faster Better Stronger". I did a bunch of stuff with Rye Rye, this little rapper from Baltimore, she's kind of like a Lil' Mama. I did a new version of "Blow Your Head" by Fred Wesley and the JBs with a really big club beat, a version of the Pixies' "Hey", like, kind of house music. Cat Power's "Free" in a Brazilian way.

And that's it, man. I got enough with people from my label.

Pitchfork: Sounds like you've got more than enough going on. Let me ask about an older project; how much involvement did you have with the new M.I.A. album?

Diplo: For the most part, I've been more like an A&R for this record. Like, I was in and out, she couldn't get into the country ... I just wanted to stay away from the whole project in some form. And then I kind of helped her, connected her with Blaqstarr, and I helped work with her and Switch a couple times, and I did some production on it. I think I got four tracks, I don't even know. Just a lot of new sounds. I was just there for that, helping her fill it out with some of the stuff I'm doing. The collaboration with Blaqstarr is really cool. It's a track called "World Town" that's kind of like a take on an old Blaqstarr song that's big in the dances in Baltimore.

I think she's just working on getting her live show together. She saw Daft Punk at the Wireless Festival so now she's having panic attacks 'cause they're so incredible. And I think, maybe, you know, once she has time to slow down, I want to do a whole 'nother record, just me and her. Because this one was kind of like her coming of age with the major labels, and in the end she didn't work that hard with it. Like, she didn't do that many tracks with the producers. Timbaland, she did one with him, and she's kind of been keeping it more lo-fi in the end.

She did some stuff with Danger Mouse and with Three 6 Mafia, but I heard that didn't really make it to full tracks. She tried; it just wasn't really compatible with what she does. I think Three 6 Mafia, all they know how to do is try to get awards. I don't know if they're really into experimenting with their sound. [laughs]

Diplo:

07-06 Amsterdam, Netherlands – 5 Days Off
07-07 Roskilde, Denmark – Roskilde Festival
07-13 New York, NY – Apple Store (Midnight Mix series)
07-15 San Francisco, CA – San Francisco Block Party *
07-21 Moscow, Russia – Solyanka
07-22 London, England – Lovebox Festival
07-27 Glasgow, Scotland – Glassic Grand
07-28 London, England – Cargo
07-29 Liverpool, England - Bumper
09-07 Baltimore, MD - Sonar (Tax Lo) #
09-08 Brooklyn, NY - Studio B #
09-15 Chicago, IL - Metro #
09-21 Los Angeles, CA - Echoplex #

* with A-Trak and Kid Sister
# with Switch