The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - South Beach Sessions - Diplo

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

Diplo has created a global music empire built on instinct. The Grammy-winning DJ, producer, and artist, shares unfiltered stories from an unimaginable life - from street fights in Florida parking lots to sunrise sets at Burning Man and producing for global giants like BTS on their new album, “ARIRANG”. Diplo celebrates the diverse, cultural roots of his musical and creative philosophy, and the artists and life-changing performances that continue to inspire him after nearly three decades of making music - from Beyoncé’s legendary Coachella set to witnessing Prince just before his death. Their conversation also takes a powerful turn as he reflects on the emotional highs and crashes of a life spent more than 200 days a year on the road - and recounts using music as both escape and release after learning his mother had passed away. From managing imposter syndrome and loneliness, to building a life of purpose and movement, Dan and Diplo examine what it takes to make people connect. For all the latest music, tour dates, and more go to Diplo.com and for Diplo's Run Club - DiplosRunClub.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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during GMC's truck month. Don't wait. Visit your local GMC dealer today and make it yours. These are the teeth I was born with, except for this one because it fell out because I got to 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 your teeth.

Are we recording it? This is Thomas Wesley Pence. You might know him as Diplo. And yes, we're recording. and continue your story. He's a multi-grammy-winning artist, DJ producer, and you can continue your story. Why did you have to push your tooth back in?

My face looks great on this camera. Your makeup girl did a really good job. I looked super, like, young and cool. I had a fight with this guy in the parking lot of, like, a dorm, and he made any 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 it was like, damn, that's going to, 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 I 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 stayed for a little bit. About five years later, it started to get grayer.

And then, like, eight years ago, it was pretty gray. It was kind of like, it was hard to like, it just looked like not good. It was rotting. It was kind of like, it was falling out. I had to get rid of this thing. And they were 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. lot of gold teeth. I have like, I had like, I don't as 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 look more like a prospector than I'd look like a cool person. Were you getting into a lot of fights? You weren't getting into a lot of fights in Fort Lauderdale, were you? Now, Fort Lauderdale, 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? I do not. With the blue rubber ball? So the name of the game was ass. Yeah, ass. So you go there with this ball And you just 10, 20 people would play We'd 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 can 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 And you're like yo what's up

Why you hit me like that And so you would fight them And yeah I think I've probably Had like two or three fights a week Really 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. Were you a good kid, bad kid? I was pretty bad, pretty bad kid around that time. So bad to where 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, where you 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 decent human being.

I think it really worked for me. If anything, I learned how to be bad, but not get caught, maybe. That's kind of what you do at 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 military. I learned how to fly like a Cessna and a simulator. And then I went back to Fort Lauderd. 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. I would imagine that military school was quite the culture shock. Have you had more culture shock than military school? 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, or pilots.

Like Jamaica has an insane amount of pilots that came from there. So a lot of kids want to be, that's their dreams. 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 can 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 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 a public school my whole life. So it doesn't, it's not a good guy. My father loved him to death, but he worked 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 it into my career, everything I do, everything, from being a father to 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. What are some of the worst, jobs that you had before you found music? Not all of them were that bad. I was really loved having a job. Like, 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 to shrimp for my dad. He owned a bait shop in Daytona area in New Somerna.

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, two, three in the morning when the moon was the highest and go out on a shrimp boat by myself, 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 out, you just, it was beautiful. I was like, I felt like I was Forrest Gump. I was just like, the moonlight was so big.

And sometime it would rain, I'd catch some weird-ass shit. 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 rough. 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 another, try school again. And then, wasn't that bad. Subway was pretty bad in Orlando. I worked at the subway on Colonial Boulevard because it was up until 4 a.m. And Orlando, man, I just love Florida. I think Orlando is 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 weekly. Like we would just get someone coming there because it's open so late. And someone would just come with a gun. I would just hide in the refrigerator. They'd take whatever. and then it was another bad job oh I part

that sounds like a pretty bad one yeah but no one ever shot me I know but I was I was routinely hiding in the fridge from people with guns and it seems like it should have come before shripping it's crazy that was right before they started locking the money because after a while there was like you have the

drop box so when you have over $100 you got put all the money in there and we didn't have that implemented until like middle of my I was like bro this is we're not going to 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, easy fix. One of my favorite jobs, though, I only did this twice because I was released.

This was, this one, you could die at this job, was during Bike Week. That's another big thing. So after I lived for, Fort Lauderd, 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 Daytonas, the 500, which is this weekend, and Bike Week, huge event. Black College reunion,

Spring Bear doesn't really happen. in 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'd 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 good 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 five thousand dollars 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 no and like the guy like got his ass kicked like bad like bad so I was like this is it's 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 Like guys, it's kind of up and down US1. 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 Linder Skinner, just all the redneck stuff that I grew up doing. But seeing it kind of come 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 pizzazz to it. They made it look a little cooler. And I think that it could be big because there's a lot of,

of good stories in NASCAR. It's just been kind of lost for like 20 years in the modern culture, but it was really exciting this time to see all the people there. It was really cool. You said coleslaw wrestling as if it's a normal thing. There's bean wrestling, big bean wrestling too, but that's up in Norman, but the coleslaw wrestling was in New Smyrna. And I think that they still have it. It's a huge, like, plastic pool. And they feel, I can't believe how much cold saw 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 kind of, You're trying to win.

But you should go check out. Wow. You mentioned Forrest Gump. I imagine you feel like that still. Shrimping is one thing. But as one example, okay, 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 one escape? From where? It was Bernie, man. I think I'm just constantly, like, my life, I'm a producer, 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 we talked, I did, I have mixed running and shripping a lot. That's what Forrest Grump 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 Krenas Clearwater, it 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. I'm from the South. Forest Camp was from Alabama. I was born in Mississippi. That's where I was born. Coupalo, right? Yeah, I always 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, one of the worst places in America. Well, it's a poorest place in America. It's the poorest, like the lowest literacy rate. poverty levels are super high. But it's really pretty. Like it's always green. I'm always remember driving through it.

It 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 and Neil Hurston.

I don't know if you know if 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, Latin 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 the shit like everything he made up

he created this genre called magical realism and if are you familiar with Gabriel Garcia-Marquez so Gabriel Garcia-Marquez is from Columbia and he was inspired by by he was probably 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 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 being in the history. I was like, damn, I'm really, 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. And that opened you up to creativity, though?

This is the first time you're thinking as an artist. Yeah, because I felt like, wow, I'm from here. 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 solos.

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 the American South are just so amazing places. And culturally, what defines us, I just started like tapping into that. Like I'm part of that. Like, and so going to being from Fort Lauderdale too in South Florida, I was like, wow,

this is, like I said, growing up in Fort Lauderdale, Broward was so, I was so lucky to do that because the diversity in Broward County gave me, like, all of the understanding of what I do as a musician. Like, growing up, poor, middle class and Broward 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. And they're introducing you to trick. Trick Daddy. Exactly. Trick Daddy. I love dance all.

I was into like, you know, guns and roses. I was into hardcore, you know, metal because of the kids there. You know, it's a bar mitzvahs. I was like, what is the Jewish people? I only knew like bar mitzvahs that were like poor kids. Like it was like a clown or whatever at the bar mitzv. So there was no religion in the ceremony, just a clown? It was like, because I don't really know.

It's like, oh, you turn 13. We got to get a president and be like, what's happening? It was like a party. And then like there would be like a clown or like a magic trick guy. And I was like, okay, it'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 is the bar mitzvah? You're getting a million dollars to just show up at a barmitsa. I was like, I don't remember these bar mitzvils when I was 13. 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 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. know what was Miami really.

That is. And Dan Marino, just somewhere out there doing, you got it. At Hooters smoking crack in the bathroom. I don't know what was going on. Yeah, that's it. You got it. You had it. You had it right.

So it's all that. But even all that is like beautiful. I was like, that's great. I love this place. I love all these stories because it's just, you know, when I told 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, whatever, they're just like, or they're like

European's like, that's fucking. 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, eh, you know. So you got to, like, educate them a little bit. Florida is weirder than you think. It's a lot more diverse than people think.

Can 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 still move you. 100%. I'm only doing this. For one, I'm very lucky to have this job. Like, I would tell people maybe the making the music side is probably 10% of what I do, but the other 90 is like ideas and the building of the music and the creative direction is what I'm really good at.

You know, like I'm really good at curating and being the right place, the right time, and exploring and investing my energy 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 or using a computer it's not my favorite thing to do but i i learned how to do it you know well enough to get by so but luckily being a dj i'm i'm kind of like uh it's 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 kind of riding with it, you know, and just, and if you're inspired, they're 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, 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 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 by being excited about music still 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 a big I can't believe I forgot that one the hive is going to 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. Maybe in the beginning, I think my very first set, because even when Beaver was starting,

I was like 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 going to 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 fuck I'm doing so I was like when he was like we're locking in it was like falsetto that was just like I had a really really grasp like what am I doing here I have to really make this project happen and like feeling like a real creator it was was like a huge transition for me. You had an imposter's syndrome inside of that? Because before that, I'm just like,

you know, I didn't even have a fucking computer until 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 at it and acid pro. And I really had a hard time learning that. Like I, and I learned how to use it and I, you know, it was hard for me. But then you started like, oh, making music is 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 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. You said usher though, because it was early. How about later in life where you've got your confidence, you've got your skill set, but you're still like, how am I here with Madonna? I'm probably saying Madonna is the next one where I was like, really felt like an imposter because like, I'm like a guy here. Here's my idea. you guys you know whatever have fun with this like I'll I'll come back whatever I'm gonna do some other shit check my emails but donno's like where the fuck are you going like get the fuck back in here and like we're gonna 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 to 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 whatever I go to like watch a TV whatever go to DJ something it was like kind of like a I'm just kind of winging it you know, but she was like a real artist. Like she was like had a 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. And 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.

What sounds have, you know, what's going to be interesting for them all to use? 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 it's chaotic and I'm under pressure I really

I do perform it the best I'm like Reggie Miller like you know you know a 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 M.O 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. Yeah. Man, I guess for a lot of men, young ones especially, we don'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 end. internet research, just learning. 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, 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 father did that. He didn't have riddlin or, you know, his annex. He was just like, war's over. It was 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 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 is possible to do. I think, you know, I've had success because I tried everything. I could, oh, I'll try all kinds of music, and I've been able to fail and succeed. And I think before, you know, 2006, when we do have the freedom of thought and freedom

to be where we want, I think you had kind of like men didn't really find information on, like, what it means to be a man. And 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. 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.

No, no. But I was always, I was, another thing that was probably a blessing for me was that my father moved many times. So I never, like, 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. I was like Nashville for two years. I never really had friends.

I was kind of on my own. Like 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 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 pressures, telling them what they should do or what they shouldn't do, who they should be, who they should love, whatever it is. 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. 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. Well, you're still running in very young circles. 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? Yeah, I mean, once you're comfortable being by yourself, which is so difficult, too, like, once you feel like, you know, you're always going to be lonely. You know, you 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, whatever it is. If you sit there and let the whole world just like run on top of you, it's, you might feel hopeless, you know, but I feel like everybody I tell them, even when we come back to running, your body is the only way. Every day when you wake up, that's the only thing you can change. Like 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. And if you go for a run or whatever it is, that's the hardest thing you're going to do today. Then 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. 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? It was kind of a gang. We were kind of a gang. Yeah. Yeah, it was kind of like we played football together.

We like shoplifted together. I mean, I have friends, but I've never felt like I've never felt like I was locked in with like a social scene. People moved to L.A. 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 California and they're just like, I don't get it. Like, what do 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. Like, 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 family. Well, the place that I was headed, though, is I imagine, how many days a year are you on the road? Probably over 200. So you've had to get very comfortable with the fact that you are off and alone or traveling, you know, with people who might not be friends. They might be co-workers or or helpers, but you're alone a lot, right? I've had more dates with my tour assistant Aiden. He might be there somewhere than any

a woman of it i mean i've really never been on a date really i feel like i'm always having dinner with like my tour team or you know um friends that i have that i visit i've been really lucky because i'm in my career like a later phase where i can kind of decide what i do you know like i came to detona to play the 500 because i could be with my dad i could be my sister i can bring my friends from california to like detona and be like i know what you guys think about this but check this out everybody who i brought to detona 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 L.A.

He's from Rome and he was just like, this is the crazy. I've been a Bernie man. This is like rivals, how insane this little city is. So I get to choose things where I was like, how do I, every day, how do I get smarter a little bit? Or how do I experience something new? And 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 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 the outside. 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.

I just wish I could speak a couple language fluently because I do feel like that's just like a... 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. I could speak a little Spanish when it comes to like really necessary. But I mean, I'm not going to tell a person my dreams and my thoughts. That's the most important thing. You know, I could speak a little Japanese and I lived there for a while.

And I was probably the closest language that I feel like I grasp Portuguese a little bit. But I want to be able to, you know, have thoughts. And I want to be able to communicate with people because those languages. You're talking about ideas. The hard stuff in the second language is a fluency. Because the music really 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, 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 do you have no idea what he's talking about. So there are intricacies and languages. I think I get the culture sometimes, but I'd love to, I'd love to learn the language. There's an American, it's like, I feel like, we all 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. So languages. is the bucket list stuff. You don't really have things that you want to go do. 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. Okay. Yeah. So you got to keep on the grind, make a little more money to make sure that you can have. Once my kids are like out of school, I might not come back kids.

I'll be like Christopher Columbus. I'm just on away. We don't know what's going to go on. But I'm going to 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. The grind of it after three decades, do you feel your age? Man, 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, from normal people, maybe a lack of better word is I live a harder life.

You know, my strain is a lot more every day because I stay have 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 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. Well, the hours you keep, though, are crazy. It is crazy.

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 space, you know, and Miami's got, you know, these 24-hour club, like, I don't know how you're doing what you're doing. 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 play sunrise sets. We go to sleep and we wake up at 4. Like when I go shrimping, I'll wake up at 4 in the morning to go catch the shrimp at when the moon. the highest.

Only really sicko people are going to stay up for like 24. And there are people that do that. And I, man, I could, I condone them. It's like this, that's hard work. Well, it's just drugs, isn't it? The drugs help. It keeps you awake. I can stay awake for a long time without drugs.

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 will 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. I just feel like my hardest thing and my daily routine is to go to sleep. But getting up, like, get it, like, let's go to DJ's party.

I've never had 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. Because it's still exciting to you, right? It is, but it's also our job. Maybe it's just second nature. You know, like, you don't tell like an emergency room nurse.

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. So it's not hard to learn that. Do you have to come down from a show? That's the hardest thing. Yeah. It's the hardest thing sometimes because the cortisol levels are high. It's just high. It's high energy. It's everything. You know, you're having all these people express happiness with you and it's addictive.

You know, a lot of musicians, you know, probably suffer from bipolar personality or, you know, manic depression sometimes because the, it's ups and down. 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 touring musicians, it's 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, being 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, to, to, to, to not find, you know, times or you're like, you know, stuck in 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 know what he's going through because we all have that. As creatives, we always, we just feel a lot. You know, that's why we translated through our music

or our writing or whatever. You mentioned anxiety as one of the feelings. 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. I'm never, I've never, I don't have the fear of like not performing well. I don't really care. Like at this point I've done it so many times, like you're going to get what I give you.

You know, like 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 run. Every day there's news, this and that, you know, there's so many outside things interfering that, yeah, I can't lie and say I don't have anxiety. But I think I'm very good at that putting it into something. I think somebody, I think it was, maybe it was the actor that was in Fallout.

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 inspiration. You know, it can kind of, it's, if you can kind of tap into it, it's powerful. I think anything that could be a crutch, you could kind of tap.

But you don't have performance anxiety anymore, right? 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, because I do a lot of different type of music, you know. I've, you know, I played in like Nigeria for my first time. And I was like, I don't know what this crowd was going to be into. You know, I did my best and it probably wasn't the best. But first time in Jamaica, I remember we played this club.

Me and a Switch, we played this club. In New Kingston, it was called, uh, starts in the A. We had a show on like a Tuesday night and we just bombed so hard. Like, we just didn't because 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. Well, that, I mean, failure is just learning and discuss, right? 100%. If I was like, if I really wanted to win every night, I would have a pre-recorded set and I would just run it and 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'd like to be like, well, 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 going to be a little more Miami style. and, you know, maybe a lot 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 a winter music conference or my music weekend, I'm playing a proper deep house event. And I'll be doing another dance hall party with Major Laser. It would 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 love that I get to switch, switch to styles all the time. First thing that comes to mind when I say you at the center of the most moving performance you've ever felt in your heart. Man, it's probably a hard one to answer, but I think I can give you some beautiful moments, you know, like some sunrises at some places where you just feel connected with people and you're just, you know, you're never going to live past some of those a burning man set or whatever where you're just like, everybody's waiting for this. They don't know what they're going to 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 uh I think I was playing in Sicily or one of those I was a club fee fee club it was like a nightclub and I didn't tell anybody my crew my cousin was trying to text me but he had the wrong number and I found out my dad called me when at dinner that my mom had passed away and I didn't tell anybody in the crew so like I got it I'm gonna flyer I told like my two members like hey hey hey I found out my dad call me at dinner hey can I get this flight to Orlando tomorrow morning? Just get me out of here like 6 a.m.

I didn't tell anybody. We had like a bunch of us there. It was like six of us. And I just went to the show and I DJed 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, Corey's, I was like just starting to play records. I just felt like gave me goosebumps.

You know, I didn't want to leave the stage. And it was I was 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. It's 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 was 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 stage coach, 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, you want 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 just like, brand locked in. And it was the first year of stagecoach. So, like, nobody knew what even a DJ was. And then it was like, fucking little Nasdax came out. We did Old Town Road Live. And then like, Sam Hunt was like, I want to come out. I was like, oh, I could dig up with Sam Hunt. He played him out and sang a song with Thomas Wreck came out.

I just was like playing for 15,000 people, just random songs that people in the audience were coming up and singing. I was like, damn, I really, I really locked. Because people were just kind of mad I was playing stagecoast. They were like, what do you do? You're not country, you know? Country music is probably the one genre where I got the most backlash. 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.

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, maybe coming full circle because you missed Beyonce. Watching her to do Coachella was like probably the, the best concert I've ever seen. It was like, there's like three, but her Coachella performance,

because I had, 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 him with old school things. And then she had like the black marching band out. And 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, well, 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 fucking 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 film war on 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, love doing that. So he was like locked in with the audience. I'm so lucky to see him. There was something I'd just seen. I was like, yeah, 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, you want to come to Hollywood Bowl? I was like, who's playing? It's 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 like, Tom Petty's like in my brain. It's like locked in. I was like, God damn. I was like, I didn't leave. I was there for three hours. hours and then he died that morning he was like the news was that he passed away that morning so

i saw his last show in in l.a and um another thing i like i'm really proud when people from florida do things he's from gainsville so he's cool i love tom petty thinking back about it anybody from florida i love them from kodak black to tom petty jim morrison was a band called ass suck i used to love They were like a metal band. They opened for Maryland Manson when I was in high school. Ass suck. Yeah. Morbent Angel.

I said love metal. And so Tampa, they must have spent so much time coming up with that name. F-A-S-S-U-C-O-Mah favorite bands in high school. It's sick merch. D-Side. I mean, if you like metal, Florida was a spot.

It was like good metal, good hip-hop. Miami bass, oh my God. I love Miami-Base music. I love DJ I see. I love breakbeat. Magic Mike.

Uncle Luke. Uncle Al. I love bass music. 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? 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 Santigold, MIA,

because she would come there. We worked on music there. Just this little shitty Philly is just like a fucking dark place, you know? Like I think Sun Ra had a quote that he's like, he's a famous free jazz guy. And he lived 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 was 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 more I didn't have any money I was like working and I was work I was working at school and being a teacher and then 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 but all 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 jumpstart as a producer and as a, as a creator, I would never be here. My first son being born 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? It was the challenge of shuttle blowing up. It's crazy. I was living in, I was living between Fort Lauderdale and New Somerda Beach. And I remember we walked outside.

This is the shuttle that Cape Canaveral, and it blew up. And I was like seven or eight years old, we had to walk outside. We're going to 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 my 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 young to get mortality blown in your face. We were like, we had to go outside and watch it. And the teachers were 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.

It was just something that's our license plate. and we always, you know, it was the thing by my, my parents' house. I don't know. 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, 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 there in November, and we did the same thing I did when I was 20. We ran in motorcycles and rode around the highways and the cities, a group of my friends that travel. And it was like, it was back to that feeling where you just, all the luxury we have here,

when you were like locked in, riding a motorcycle around somewhere like India, the cities, the traffic was crazy. And every movement in your body matters. Like, that's really, that's as close as you get to meditation for me. How long did you do that for? 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 The Northeast corner by the border of Myanmar and Bangladesh where you can ride around you like to parks where there's Four hundred rhinoceroses you know then you like the 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 you just Like, when you hear 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. What are the details you most, uh, remember about being most broke? Man, it's probably when my son was, uh, he was born in October and November, we were, me and his mom were just living in like an apartment in Los Phila's.

Because back when you were a songwriter and you're young, you don't have a, You just, they, 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 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 got to get a house because I got to have got to feed this kid. You know, it was like. Oh, but that's because you're scared, right?

You're scared of a responsibility. You're just like, ah, man, I got to 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 traveling. You could do that in Philadelphia, though, when it's just you, though. This is the burden of responsibility. It's the responsibility of parenthood. But also, you realize how many problems come from being broke. Like, you're 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 own a car, really. I, like, I'm pretty chill. I wear, like, use 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 much Americans have to deal with that all time. And you know, when you do know it,

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 how to utilize. Why are you frugal? Is it to be not materialistic? Is it to be spiritual? Or is it don't care. 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 on my family or you know traveling or seeing something I'm never I'm never like 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 experiences but I've got to imagine though I I mean your wildest dreams looked like what when you started in music because oh my god just couldn't have been anything close to this I just didn't want to have a job because I did it

I did a couple of jobs like I did like I worked a subway I took tickets I was like a I delivered flower I did all these things where I was like goddamn I want to work for something that every day when I finish

I feel like I made something you know and I didn't just make money for a CEO or something I didn't make you know somebody else rich I wanted like make something that it's meaningful

and that was music was the only way I could do it tell me the dinosaur tell me about the dinosaur that you're named after like what what is that all about well I was really obsessed with paleontology as a kid like I was really into dinosaurs you were gonna you were gonna be that I was the thing that I mean high school's like that's not a real idea

that's crazy that's like a not even a job let me be a DJ that's not a job what I'm gonna do is be a DJ even even weirder I ended up going to get 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 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, 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, you care about money. I just wanted to be like, I just was obsessed 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 like spent a year off. I worked in Italy. I worked at Colors Magazine. 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 an application to 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 fuck did you get into a grad school? And I was like, Dad, I got to tell you, I think I'm going to be a DJ. Like, this DJ.

He was like, yo, get the fuck the ear. He was, like, so pissed off because it was like the most crowning moment of his, like, yo, my son made it to grad with like no help. He, like, did it himself. And I was like, dad, I'm going to be a DJ. And he was like, I think he hung up on me. And then it took him like another five, ten 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 his, my cousins and stuff. He's 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 really won the lottery with my parents. Like I got so lucky with two great, two great parents. I don't think you answered my dinosaur question. That was the thing.

Okay, so that was where it started. I loved the Diplodocus at a point in time. It was the biggest animal on the world long. This dinosaur, blue whales is a little bigger than him. I was obsessed with the size of this dinosaur. So there was this girl that gave me the nickname in high school, Diplodica. 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 it. She had these lips that were like a giraffe when you eat like leaves and stuff. So she called me a Deplotica. She was like a girlfriend kind of where 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.

like Orlando and that was like the artist name I picked and I made a little mixtape and it you can find that my first album is called Diplodica. It's not called Diplodic. It's called Epistemology Suite. It's like a little mix series on discogs or whatever. And then I got signed to Ninja Tune on that mixtape and I changed my name to Dipluco because it was too, no one could pronounce Deplodocus. And then that's been it. That was like 30 years ago. You've mentioned how close you were to your mom, how lucky you are to have your parents, you lost your sister and your mom a month apart. How did that change you? Well, my mother was sick for a long time.

She had bad lung problems. She smoked her whole life. So she had emphysema and she had a walk with oxygen. And my sister also had like a lot of health problems. She was diabetic and very overweight and very unhappy. But she was so sweet. like Amy was like one of the most beautiful people ever 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 them. My sister died. My mother just kind of like, she just, I think she gave up. She was like, my sister died and she was just kind of like, this time, you know, she wouldn't be my sister.

I feel like she kind of left. So it was kind of like, it was just, difficult, but it was like, I'm so happy. My mother got to see my children that grow up, so. 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. 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. 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 my mother. 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 up enough to see her.

But I think my mother was like the rock at her 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 just like, like her life felt like it was a little bit. There wasn't much left for her, you know, so. But she lived a lot longer than she should have to be part of my life, I think. She was like my biggest fan. I was going to say her belief in you was something that you still carry, right?

Yeah, 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. 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. I don't really 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

focused on, I was like, God, I got to make music happen. If I don't make music happen, I don't know what's going to, 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 going to fucking, you know, you know, you're going to do it. You know, if it's all, if it's the only choice, you're going to make it happen no matter what. 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 photographer. You're talking about Philadelphia music scene. and jazz that comes from pain. Like everything about you is creativity. I think that I 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 is 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, you know, this is why Diplo is interesting. You know, I did my work in the cultural side. I did my work traveling, my research. I loved music and I learned how to make music. I learned how to play music. And behind it all, I had my friends. 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 fucking like you know Orlando my dad was grown up in Belgrade I went to go visit where he grew up and all these things was like wow this story's nuts like I'm really special. It's like I'm not like I'm not like a prince I didn't like live in like a cat. I'm like these are little things but I was like yo this is my story is great and I'm going to 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. 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. Diplos Run Club, that is meditative for you, the act of running. 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 the speaker says to me, I'm like, bro, I can't, I can't do it. But like running a motorcycle, running those things, or even surfing is all my favorite things to do, like sitting on the water and just being by yourself, you know, all that stuff is meditation. You don't have to, like, do transcendental meditation. I tell people that all the time, that'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 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. But the mind is both a blessing and a poison. And I imagine you have difficulty stopping and slowing yours down. I do too. It's just always noise all the time. I mean, that's the one problem with being a 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 got to make this idea. Like I had it in 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, 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 going to inspire you to finish something. But what's happening there is that that you don't want the day to end? Like, what, 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. more. You can cut your schedule in half no matter how much of an economy you are, 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? I think I just, I'm, 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, but if you're born between like 78 and like 82 or a certain thing, it's 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 remember when there was no data like there was no it was like everything was analog the world was and 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, oh, this is that. I'm just like, yo, let's run with it. Like, everything is a tool. You know, everything is a tool to use. If you don't believe that, eventually you're just going to be kind of like cast to this, you know, the ones who are writing with it, go forward. Everybody else is kind of like, yeah, you can sit back in protest. But, I mean, it's going to move on without you. It's a cool story. I really appreciate your honesty and the fact that you're so open about sharing it. Thank you, sir.

I'm only me. I got nothing, you know, I can't, I got to just give it all out there. Thank you, sir. Yeah, thank you.