The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Diplo: College Dropout To World's Most Iconic DJ

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

Diplo is a DJ and music producer, who as well as being one of the biggest solo DJs in the world, is one half of Major Lazer and Silk City. But when Diplo was growing up in the deep American south, the music world seemed a million miles away. A journey to expand his horizons and connect with new types of people and music would take him to Brazil, Japan, Jamaica and many, many more places. DJs like Diplo are in the business of creating unforgettable moments and experiences for their audience, but what is it like to live those moments nearly every day, every time in a new city, every time in a new way? His new album ‘Diplo’ is out now. Follow Diplo: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/diplo Diplo's new album - https://open.spotify.com/album/2Lm2otWdTB4ChDfvbRXHIu Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

Quick one. Just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to to Amazon Music, who when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And

thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. If I knew now what I knew then I would have done a different journey. And the Grammy goes to... Dance album. DJ of the year. Diplo. Diplo. Diplo. And I just remember, I did this whole circuit working with all these young rappers, and

they were like really young. They were like 19, 20, and these rappers all started to die. You know, Lil Peep, Overdose X was shot. Nobody really cares about like all the adoration you get. You care about the people that don't like you, and you get caught up in that it's not a consistent paycheck music never is and it wasn't for me for three four years one month i'm not doing good i don't care i can't pay rent i'm homeless what's the the sacrifice or the cost in terms of like personal life balance i have to answer that Wes yeah um whenever I do this podcast I always get really intrigued by the the formative years

of someone's life and in your story um it seemed like a very very humble beginning when I look at where you started under the age of 14 um i couldn't quite piece together myself obviously how that early upbringing had led you to becoming who you are today is there is there anything when from below the age of say like 14 that you can point out and say if that hadn't happened or if that if i hadn't had that experience or that interaction with a family member or a grandfather, whatever it might be, I don't think I would be here today. I didn't start really producing,

releasing music till like my mid twenties because it was pretty late. I was doing things, but not actually at a level where I could quit my job. And it's my main source of income. But when I was younger, I was a pretty bad kid. I was bouncing from high schools

and different middle schools. And I was actually sent to a military school at one point at like that age like 14. um and i even got expelled from there and then like that was like the last my my last shot right and i came back they let me back in because it cost my family like a lot of money it was like three thousand dollars for me to go there because i was i was getting sent out of every school but going to the military school maybe if anything it taught me how to like if i was going to do something criminal or like something bad like it was bad be a little smarter about it if anything because everybody there was like criminal the whole military school was just a bunch of terrible kids and they were like really knew what they were doing um so if anything i kind of like it was like learning from the school of hard knocks, you know?

But I think being in military school, even though it was only like for one year, and my father, he was a Vietnam vet, and I think I can attribute his concept of discipline to it. You know, like no matter how bad I was or how much I disagreed with my father, he gave me the most complex rules of what discipline means, what it is to apply in whatever you're doing. And I didn't realize that until I was older.

That, you know, what makes my story successful? What makes me a better DJ? What makes me a better songwriter? It really, I don't have the technical abilities, but I have, I always apply myself to find a goal, you know, and I really feel like that's what my father gave me before, before I turned into an adult. Cause it's just something I had inside me that separated me from everybody else when I got into the music business. Work ethic was such a clear thread throughout your story, like relentless, almost at times it seems somewhat obsessive work ethic. And it's funny because when I hear about your early upbringing, I guess my assumption is because it sounds quite similar to mine,

getting kicked out of school and being the only kid out of four siblings that was like always getting bad grades, always an exclusion. Did people around you think you were going nowhere at that point? A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, even until the mid twenties, my father was like, how did you buy this house? Like, how did you, what are you doing?

Like there's no, there's no way possibly you're making money with music like he's like there's just no possible way and i went to college i went for um i went to ucf like a little part like community college because i couldn't afford like a real school i did two years there just basically just getting just being in a school so i could have something to advance forward and then i went to temple university in philly and i ended up dropping out of that school, but I went for anthropology and filmmaking. So it was like a really, two other degrees that would literally turn into no job.

But I was obsessed with documentary filmmaking. I thought that would be something I could do. I was obsessed with culture. I was obsessed with humans and people and the study of culture. And I was, you know, as a young person, I was reading National Geographic all the time and watching documentaries.

So that was something, I was like, how do i apply that you know and my father was also like this is a huge mistake what are you doing what about accounting that's a great degree to have um in the end i think what i'd learned at that university was um because in the film program it was like there was a lot of creative avenues i could learn from and the people who are professors were almost like filmmakers that didn't make it and they have to be professors kind of feels like so like what am i doing here i want to learn these people aren't aren't even in the business you know so the real business is like going out and making it yourself and i think

i just did that set third year i was like i'm out of school but i kind of wish i had dropped out of college earlier and had a head start because it took you a while when you're paying your college tuition and working and it's so time consuming and then eventually i started to to do music and do little odd jobs like djing to where i was like oh i can kind of like quit my jobs now and also like yeah i think if i knew now what i knew then i would have done a different journey but I think that's what makes you who you are you know no matter how long it takes and and eventually you make that decision to sort of start heading towards music right um even though it's not paying you at all and I was

reading about the jobs you were doing in that period of your life you worked at a zoo at one point yeah you were a social worker at one point yeah how long did that period of your life when you'd made the decision to move towards music and that music was going to be your thing how long was that it definitely wasn't i mean i at 22 years old i was already working like nine to fives you know it was it was like the social work job was my first job as like this is a job that feels good to do like you know i'm working with children i was going between teaching kids and then i have a school program and it just felt like okay this is cool um it feels like I'm doing something for somebody instead of working at like subway and making money for the head of subway which is kind of like a waste of my energy

but working with kids I felt a little bit like I I felt fulfilled you know I think but then you run into the bureaucracy of of i was in a city like philadelphia so it was just like so much corruption even in like this the social work world it was crazy um eventually i was getting beaten down at that job too i was like this is this is my life like 22 i'm like this is this is all i can look forward to is like building my way into like this job or this job and i think i started djing on the side uh at parties and learning from the djs there because philadelphia is a famous city for djing it's like culturally one of the most important cities in america um for hip-hop for djing and i just started doing parties and then i saw what you do if you do your own party like you can invest invest in yourself and promote a party and

you take everything right so i started learning small little business acumen from just doing parties and then eventually i started i can quit my job i can make it it was a huge step because at that point you don't know when you're doing music and parties full time it's literally up to to how much you're working or what you're doing to keep the money flowing to pay the rent if i don't one month i'm not doing good i don't care i can't pay rent i'm homeless um it's not a consistent paycheck music never is and it wasn't for me for probably three four years but yeah it took it just it's just literally just putting your boots to the ground and like doing the work and like failing at it and learning what makes you better what makes you more money like what's

how do you grow this business even in these little small steps that's kind of what i did in those those first years of my career and i wasn't even really making my own music yet i was just djing and making mixtapes and making edits and learning how to use computers still like i had nobody to teach me i was buying hardware or you know in high school shoplifting from sam goody and sam ash and like guitar center like samplers to use so it really just came down to just the grind to figure out what works and what doesn't it was so evident even when i was hearing about you like in the record stores and ultimately selling a record

to can't are they vinyls you're selling to canadian samples and stuff but throughout that even like your the story about you reading was it william faulkner's book yeah and you're you had this clear hunger for learning, teaching yourself how to make music, teaching yourself computers, teaching yourself the business side of things. Most people don't have a predisposition just to figure stuff out. And that, again, when I'm trying to figure out

exactly how you became this global superstar, I'm like, that feels to be a consistent thread throughout your story as well, that learning hunger. I think when you think about what a DJ is, now they're like david getta they're headlining festivals or even me like i'm headlining my own shows but back when i was growing up you know the big djs from say detroit like uh the magician or like you know afro bambada people that were djs were like the selectors they were like the guys who did all the work to know what music is there what this music is how this music exists and they were like kind of the cultural benchmark

they were the guys who cataloged everything for to distribute in the scene right um so i think i loved that like i was like i want to i love music like i love what it is i loved and i went to parties and i remember seeing people like questlove and like cash money and these djs like cosmo baker playing crazy records like playing philip cootie and then playing like um you know a disco record and then playing something new like a local hip-hop record and i was like and then playing like babe ruth like an old rock and roll record i was i was so obsessed with how they could connect these things that don't make any sense musically and that's what i always thought was the great i think story of what DJs do is they're like guys

who can process all this culture and give it to you in a certain way and now it's more streamlined you're going to go to a house party hear house music you're going to go to like a bashman party here dance hall but the really special DJs were able to like do everything and so I think when I learned that was like a skill set I started looking at vinyl I started learning about different music I would like ask DJs what does that record be playing who are these artists? Like, what is Fela Kuti? Where's Nigeria?

Where do they make music? Like, what's it sound like? You know, then I'm like, where are the producers? Like, oh, the guy from The Who went to Nigeria and was a drummer there. And then he went back and did this. And then, oh, James Brown heard this guy. And then he hired another drummer.

This is like, became like a web of music. I started to follow everything and read liner notes. And then I just was obsessed with gaining all the knowledge about music, whatever I could, and using that to apply to being a dj that obsession just led me to being a record collector you know like i said i traveled a little bit at the end of my university i went to india with one of my professors to work on a documentary and um the border of pakistan and in india is called uh in gujarat it was like this this little uh kind of like a valley called the round of kutches a huge earthquake there i think around 2000 and i was there doing some sort of building

work and you know working with uh red cross and things like that and then i just kind of bounced and took a motorcycle and just went all over india and just explored my own and i bought a bunch of vinyl at the time the most expensive record in the world were these beatles 78s they were like beatles records but at 78 rpm right if you find good ones in india they only make many if you find good ones they're worth like a thousand to a couple thousand dollars but i was finding indian soundtracks i was finding things like um there's a rec a classic indian soundtrack called shalimar with like crazy like spy themes and like break beats on it at the time if you find one of those at a record shop pay like a

you know a couple rupees you could bring it back to london and sell it at like poland street for like you know 300 pounds so that was like this weird hack i found like traveling and buying records i did in india i did it in philadelphia i would go to new jersey i go to new york i would buy record old records and sell it to different record collectors you know make quest love was one of my first guys i sold to i sold records to kanye west when he first started producing um collecting records was like a certain business and on ebay that was another hustle i had like selling things that i buy flea market stuff and sell it on ebay a lot of it was vinyl one of the one of the thing to get things again that's so um obvious and apparent with you which

is kind of a thread that kind of weaves between many of my guests specifically comedians for some reason because comedians they at some point you see this decision they've made to like leave the city leave like their job in finance and pursue this thing that has no apparent chance of making them any money at all but they just follow this like passionate obsession they spend a year going up and down the country working for nothing because they're obsessed with comedy for whatever reason. And a lot of young people, when they think about being a DJ or an entrepreneur,

whatever, they think to themselves, okay, I want the admiration of standing there and all these people clapping for me and the money. Yeah. But you were so clearly led by this like unbelievably obsessive passion, which seems actually to be, if I was to say 95% of my guests followed one path,

it would definitely be, they didn't really care about the outcome. They cared about like the passion and the pursuit of the passion. Yeah. That's so clear with you, right? I mean, the beginning was definitely a hustle. Like I love music and it saved me from,

you know, even in high school, you know, I moved from different high school to high school and I didn't have a friend group. So I kind of was like leaning towards, I want to play music, but I couldn't, my parents didn't even buy me a guitar. Like I didn't even know how to play. I was like, how am I going to learn a guitar?

Or no, how am I going to learn piano? But I like was like DJing, that's like the future of music. Like in my, it was like turntablism was really big. I remember being like 16, being like, I'm going to buy record players. That's what I'm going to buy. That's like, that's what I'm going to do as a, as like a creative person.

This is like a futuristic way to do things. So I leaned into that, started learning what a DJ was, but in the beginning, yeah, I had to do the groundwork to know what it is I'm going to play, like what it is that the music comes from, where was this music at? Where do I buy the records? What do the crowds react to? Et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, this formative years I spent time grinding, but then eventually I was like, okay, how do I make money out of this? And yes, I want to play for a crowd. And yes, I want adoration. Yes. I want to meet girls. Of course that happens later and that's another drive. But in the beginning, I just, I didn't really expect to have a job out of it. You know?

Do you think you would have been as successful as you are if you, if someone had taught you how to make music and you'd been really mentored by someone because sometimes that hurts innovation and creativity if there's a if convention is too involved yeah if you know what i mean i do what you mean because i see nowadays like kids can literally learn and copy any style of music in a day because they have a tutorial it's so easy it's really easy and i wish i had that but then at the same time i wouldn't have i wouldn't have had such a definitive like who i am and if i were when people always ask me when i do radio shows like what advice would you give to young djs and it's like always the same thing like what makes

yourself unique like what what really makes you different because i get through a fucking rock and i'm gonna hit a dj or artist in the head in london like i'm just somebody here it's like but it's so easy like i literally get demos all the's like somebody not talking about you but it's so easy like i literally get demos all the time like what i don't even care i don't even pay attention i used to actually like try to listen to demos i'm like this is all the same shit like people are doing the same thing over and over again like you know whether whatever city you're in there's like a thing and every once in a while you get like a special person that comes out of nowhere and you're like wow that's unique like but really what what is it like for me you're talking about

William Faulkner I really tapped into like my southern heritage when I was younger I was like what I loved like Miami bass music growing up in Florida I loved like um you know the crunk scene the bounce scene in New Orleans I love I grew up in Tennessee for a couple years so I loved like Memphis rap was like my favorite thing so when I went to the east coast none of that stuff was happening like nobody listened to that music so I was like let me bring this to east coast let me start playing this my parties and it took off like all this new sounds I brought even though they were just like a one-hour flight down south to hear Miami bass music no one listened to it in Philly so I was playing this stuff mixed with like 80s records and that was like my brand I was the guy that was like

doing this mashup culture and so nobody else had that party there was like urban parties they'd be playing hip-hop there would be you know rock and roll parties playing like glam rock and you could dance to it there would be like high-end parties playing house music but nobody was playing for like the art school kids and the hipsters at the time because it was pre-hipster it wasn't even a word yet and i was like that's my market and i was like no one's tapped into this let me go ahead and do this you know and every time i every every little venture i've done as a musician has been like why is no one in this market like even when I did Major Lazer, it was like reggae and dance hall we were doing, but nobody was really doing it in the clubs in America.

There was like, if you go to Philly, you want to see Vibes Cartel, you have to go to this one ghetto club in Lancaster, and it's like only Jamaicans there. And I'm like, this is such crazy music. Why don't we do this on another level? Why don't we work with some of these artists and do bigger records? And so I was like, no one's doing dance hall. Let's do this on another level? Like, why don't we work with some of these artists and do bigger records? And so I was like, no one's doing dance hall.

Let's do this project. So everywhere I went, I was like, like experimenting, like what do, how do I do this and kind of make it my own? Or how do I like work this into my sets? And it's been like a journey,

you know, this is 20 years now I'm doing this since I played at my first show at Fabric. And it feels like I've done so many, if you're a fan of mine and you follow me for 20 years, it's a really tough journey. Cause it's like i've done so many if you're a fan of mine you follow me for 20 years it's a really tough journey because it's like i'm done you're gonna go to reggae music you're gonna go to country music now you're gonna go to deep house you're gonna go this way this way but a few people actually go with me and follow my career so um you know i think that's what makes me a one of a kind person i guess so back to my my point when young people give me ask me questions of like

what is it what kind of advice i can give me questions of like what is it to what kind of advice advice i can give you i'm like what find like a really unique thing and just and just lean into that lean into that so hard like figure out even if it feels weird just make it make sense you know make it make it work for you because otherwise you're just going to be one in one of a hundred like clones of different djs different rappers if it feels weird is that sometimes also an indication that there's a big opportunity there because it's it's yet to break or it's yet to be discovered so like weirdness might be a hundred percent yeah more now than ever back then it was like i mean even djs wasn't a thing when i started doing it like you would you wouldn't dj being a dj wasn't

a career it was like there's a few guys on the radio in europe is different there was a dj culture here but in america there wasn't like a job description called DJ. Like you wouldn't think there wasn't DJs on the radio. They weren't featuring on their music. Now it's pretty commonplace. But just being a DJ was unique for me. But nowadays, since there's so much information all the time, so much media, there's so much artists fighting for your eyeballs and

your ears on tiktok and instagram it's more than ever important to have something like wow i gotta go look at that again because it's like just having a catchy hook's not enough everybody has a cat like there's a thousand catchy hooks you can just go and buy them literally at the market it's like not special one thing that really surprised me about you as well is that you're quite um i don't know whether it is humble about your talent but when i've seen in multiple interviews when you're asked what the biggest misconception is about you one of them you said is that that i'm talented and i've heard you say a number of times that you're faking it or that you're still

looking for the some kind of like validation that you're a real, you know, and even at the start of this conversation, you said, I'm not technically the best or, where does that go? Is that imposter syndrome? What is that? No,

I think I've always been like more of a conceptual artist. Like, you know, I think of music and concepts. I think of music as like, oh, it's like a math problem, you know,

like how does this add to this? How do I make it work? You know, it's always been like a riddle. Every time I try to think of like what to combine things. Now it's a little easier because I'm like, I'm doing this kind of dance album. I know exactly what works because I'm DJing these records and I'm making collaborations with friends of mine, artists. But when I was younger, I literally my first album was called Florida.

It was on Ninja Tune. And it's so weird. Like I remember being just like so stoned and just fucked up and like making this record. And like people still hit me back like that record was a classic i'm like what are you talking about it was like crazy chaos it was like me just like in my room in orlando like trying to figure out how to i wasn't even things weren't even in key like i'm sampling on this like two channel little like a kai s20 sampler like that thing worked and um laying things out like if you know anything about daws like workstations like they're so complex like logic ableton back then i used something called cool edit pro and there wasn't

even like a piano roll or anything i just had like windows like photoshop when you just like i just layered the loops on top of each other and sequence it in one long window because i couldn't it was just it was the worst way to work ever but i learned this ass backwards way that kind of gave me a little flavor i guess but i never was like a a musician you know i never i never mastered an instrument and i always thought djing i never was a good turntablist like i mean if you put me in my room with like a track or like dj craze it's embarrassing those guys are like they're like magicians you know but i thought i'm the guy with like ideas and how do i apply those ideas and it became easy with as the technology advanced like i'm like oh these

programs make it a lot easier for me i don't need to like play my midi keyboard i don't need to be scott storch you know i can just like literally see the audio ableton's my favorites i see audio and i can work with raw audio it's it's my mind works that way so i I think, yeah, I'm more of a conceptual person than I am like a, like a digital auteur, even with, even with production. I mean, I always say like Skrillex is like the guy that blew my mind. Like he uses like a computer, like a, like a grand piano. Like he just does, it's the craziest thing he does, you know? So I think there's people that are in my generation that are like the savants and I'm not that but i i kind of mixed my talent for new new sounds and a talent for songwriting to make what like who i am but but to say that you're

you're faking it and uh i mean maybe it was a joke but yeah to describe it as the biggest mistake it might have been talking about dj because i mean literally it's probably like the most uh it's people will ask me like how to you know like how to do it or what to do it's such a you can learn in 10 minutes like how to do the technical sides you know um was i thinking that i mean no because at the end of the day what i think makes dj special i explained earlier is that you have this you have to have history that's what makes it special i think that's why you have dj careers in in london especially these guys are like david rodigan you know he's like a guy who's like in his like late 60s i hope i don't age him maybe seven but he's been doing this since he was interviewing bob marley like he's a he still rocks parties playing like selecting

the perfect records because he has the skill set like he knows exactly he can read a crowd like southwest london he can go to jamaica he can go to like Italy, he can play the right songs at the right time. So there's something intrinsically beautiful about, you know, being a DJ. But yeah, some things it feels like I'm faking it. But I mean, even in the beginning, I faked it to like get in the studio. You know, that's what I did to like, to have my foot in the door, you know. When you asked about your creative process, I was looking through the the

huge wealth of traveling that you've done brazil india um spent time in london and various parts of the world um how formative is travel and going to these different cultures and understanding the way they do things to what the art you ultimately created because when i think about creativity from a marketing standpoint i see it as like pulling together lots of little pieces to form something new and you you have because of your obsession with the vinyls and the musics and the samples you seem to have this like huge wealth of like artistic reference points yeah to create new stuff from i'm just obsessed with the conversation that's like happening all over the world like you know whether i go to brazil or london's a good example where you have this like pan-african jamaican caribbean and then like

you know european thing happening that's like drum bass that's like funky that's like um now it's drill like there's all these genres that if you look look into it why it exists you can literally pinpoint the first creators and like where they come from and like why is it like why do they make this kind of sound so i was always like putting together the equations like why are these things happening and brazil's my favorite place to talk about because I was hearing this music. It was called Funk Karaoke for a long time. There's girls that were doing a party in Philly. And I remember they gave me a mixtape and it was this like sound that was a mix of Miami bass and samba and like heavy metal because they're screaming songs.

There's bass beats, but they're using like these timbrezinho like drums yeah so i was like what the fuck is this i like literally couldn't find any information on this music so i went to i went to i went to brazil and i actually had a magazine fund this trip it was it was an article for fader magazine and i went down there i met the big djs and i just became immersed in that scene you you know, producing with some of those guys, learning to produce with them and moving that sound forward a little bit. I think my first real production was with M.I.A. It was called Bucky Dungun. And it was a it was a funk record that we did. And remember, we actually went back to Brazil and played it at this huge festival and was like a massive hit in Brazil and actually helped, I think, maybe validate some of the funk music in Brazil. Because before that, it was like a Rio thing and it became like a all over the country there started

making and now if you go to brazil like funk music is the most commercial thing back then 20 years ago it was like a pretty underground genre and um but yeah everywhere i go i'm like i want to learn more once i learned like all the catalog all the old producers from you know jazz funk and soul and hip-hop then I'm like the rest of the world is there's like endless possibilities of where music comes from and what's going on so I started like venturing out there in terms of your creative process as well you in two different interviews I saw you talk about creating music that lasts a lifetime like really timeless pieces of art and the question that I had when I saw you say that was like how do you do

that how do you how can you even anticipate that a piece of music is going to be timeless is there something in the design of it or the inspiration or the story there's a there's a few times i've been in the studio and i'm like a song i might be working on gives me goosebumps you know that that happens um it was like when i did the we did justin bieber's where are you now like something like that like just was like whoa what the hell are we doing and then like lean on for major laser that was a record that i've probably spent a one year on the production you know because i did so many different vert like no this isn't right now this isn't what's happening right now this is i need to do something as a producer my job is to predict the future like when i release this record after i make it it's going to take like three months to actually get

to the people you know because it's like you needed to go labels cleaning the record it can't just be like back in the day i would make an edit and dj? Because it's like, you needed to go with labels, cleaning the record. It can't just be like, back in the day, I would make an edit and DJ it, and it was like hitting people right up, my little local neighborhood. But a producer's job is literally like, try to like, at least mine, my forte has always been like, how can I do something that's gonna be big in like six months or like a year?

Like kind of like being futuristic sounding. Cause that's what the greats have always done, you know? Prince or Timberland or Pharrell, they've always made records that trendset because they were so futuristic so my goal has always been to follow them never to follow a trend um and those two records were ones that we did and we're like yes this is going to work even though it's fucking crazy or even palm the floor i remember listening to that and driving around in the car um that's the song i did for major laser i remember driving around la and looking at the guy who produced with me named switch and we were just like this is is this gonna work it was so crazy

like we were just like this is so wild and then and then yeah like four years later beyonce sampled that record and it became a massive hit so there was like my career has always had these little moments where we do things and then they the ramifications happen later you know you feel the effects you know the seeds like you said um but yeah having classics is important i think a couple times you know when you're on you're in it and you're like okay this is this is worth the time this is worth the effort because learning songwriting with some of the great guys like um you know dr luke's on my publishing in the beginning i happen to be in the studio with him and circuit and a lot of his writers i was like man you've spent three days on

like a second verse like this is what you do now as a that's what pop music is like you literally like if you think a record is the big record you just it's so painstakingly like like the effort is so concise like how to make this the best record ever like everything is like a perfect addition like an architect like every little corner of the house has got to be perfect right so i learned that process which i don't do very often but when a record's big i follow through and then otherwise just do a shit ton of records and one of them's going to be good too that's another process you can do which also i can do that too like just put you know randomly i'll put records out and record like on my mind which is another house records on my album that was a huge tiktok record which

would net we would never guess like you can't even guess when those records happen yeah so because you can't guess when one's going to be a winner and maybe one's not going to catch on as a creative do you kind of try and not harm your piece by trying to predict too much what the outcome is going to be do you just focus on the process itself and like how much can you can you predict if something's going to be a i mean there's a lot of like in this like we're talking about being in the studio so like i said there's a process like to making a great record but there's also like diplomacy when you're in this when you're a producer like you have to know the artist like you know ed sheeran do you have an extra record

we can try to work on and then he gives you songwriting and that's how like a record like cold water happened was another uh bieber song i did and then you're like okay how do can we ask bieber's manager, can he maybe do this record? We'll do a trade for a production. OK, then that deal's in the place. Then, OK, who can play the guitar on this? Oh, you find that person.

So sometimes it's literally like being an ambassador, like talking to all these people and try to put a record together too. That's another process that I had to learn. And that's something else. When a record's already done, you take a song and you dress up the production, you still have to find all the keys to make that record work. So it's like every record is a different journey.

And now with dance music, I'm literally just in the studio hearing records and trying to figure out what sound I want to make for a live effect. And then I apply that in the studio. But I've literally probably, every kind of songwriting you can do, I've done it every kind of songwriting you can do. I've, I've, I've done it, you know, from like sitting with an acoustic guitar with Madonna to, you know, recording sound field recordings in a favela or, you know, paying for studio session for a reggae artist with like my last little bit of money in Philly. Like it's at a, at,

you know, the root studio and like barely getting a hook and then it was not even good enough to be making something out of that later you know like it's always like it could be collections of vocals or sample packs or everything i've done you know i've tried it you know what's the cost of all of this in terms of on your maybe cost is a bit of a presumption but what's the the sacrifice or the cost in terms of like personal life balance because you're obsessed you're obsessed no i think i was i was probably running at like 200 miles an hour until covid happened i don't think i would ever take a break and that was probably the best thing that happened like when i got with covid when the lockdown happened and i couldn't do shows like shit let me actually

buy a house and let me actually like you know like figure out what's my next steps in life i kind of needed that break because i was just going everything was breakneck speed you know it was like the grammys this weekend oh you have a session with this person's beginning oh we gotta get back on this i gotta go to jamaica and do this it's like everything was happening i never said no to anybody i was like this is crazy i was like you know a musician has the same life as all as an athlete you have like a peak you know if you're a linebacker in NFL football, your career is like maybe three or four years because you're getting beat up.

A quarterback can play, you know, until he's 44. A producer or artist, like they're just hot for as long as they're hot. And then they have to find, they have to come down. Some of them can just continue to always go there. Like, you know, you have like people that are just always going to be in your mind, like Madonna or, you know, some of the big pop stars like taylor swift every record is going to perform

but a lot of times you like on borrow time you don't know when you're when you're when your window is going to close so for me i was like i gotta keep going keep going and i never i feel like i never had hit my my peak so i was like let's keep pushing it forward and eventually i was like you know what this isn't that important, let me like actually enjoy my life. I have three kids now. I want to like do things. I want to, I want to, you know, explore more, but not think about the work. I want to do things that maybe benefit my mind. And I think that's kind of what the last two years of downtime has given me, even though I did produce a lot of records in between, it was on my own terms, you know, I wasn't like chasing all the live events

and I wasn't chasing all the different successes I could have had. COVID was very much the same experience for me. It's actually why I resigned from my company because I actually got to look at my life. It was like when I stopped flying eight times a month, I got to look at my life. And I also got to feel what it was like to slow down

and talk to my friends and my family a little bit. When you think about your pre-COVID life, now you've got the benefit of hindsight and you've had time to pause. Were you happy in that phase of your life? I was because it's weird. I mean, I was losing touch with other people. I felt that. So I was like very insular, but my life, I run the best like when it's chaos, when I'm doing 300 shows a year and I'm like getting up and doing the emails and going to the gym. And then I'm like, this is like, I just work under pressure.

I don't know what it is. It's like my best forte is to have just chaotic stuff happening all the time. And I'm like, somehow I can get through it. So I was into that. And then I was was like this is a very unhealthy way to live um so now it feels like i'm back on a promo tour and it feels like i'm back on this like fast track fast track and i'm like uh kind of want covid a little bit but then you know it's all part of the process because you put a record out it's important for people to hear it you know like you only have one chance for records to be released and it's like you, you should give that. If you have a great song,

you should give it every opportunity it has to reach people because it's one shot. But don't waste your time on every song. You have a good song. I got this song, Miguel, that we're promoting. I'm like, this song's worth the work. Other songs may be like, eh, I'll put them out and maybe something will happen.

You never know. Maybe in three months, there'll be a midget dancing to it on TikTok or something and it's a crazy experience or something and then it goes viral. You never know what's going will happen. You don't never know. Maybe it's in three months, there'll be like a midget dancing to it on TikTok or something. And like, it'd be, it's a crazy experience or something. And then it goes viral. You never know what's going to happen.

It's like just rolling the dice every time. But every once in a while, there are some steps you can take to ensure a record has its best chance of surviving, you know? And that's like what you're doing now, right? Like the promo,

putting effort behind it. So then look, so COVID happens, your world kind of grinds to a halt, everybody everybody's does and you probably find yourself in a house somewhere alone yeah how's that then in terms of mental health and dealing with the sudden stop i i think uh i mean the thing that sucked the worst about covid is i had these children and like it was a time i was like man i could do whatever i want but there was nothing to do like you couldn't go to in LA we closed the parks for so long because there was no school like you know there's no birthday parties you can't go see other kids like it was

just kind of like it's almost like a a waste opportunity I had like a whole year to be with my kids I was like what do we even find time to do I was like I buy a house we'll basketball courts in the house just play basketball like it like, literally I made an environment for them to enjoy life. But, um, I think honestly, I've been doing this for so long and I've made a really great team around me. Like I have these great women that like, or like that always work with me and like work for me. And I think it just feels like there's a big family like now, you know, like people like it's a team, whether it's like on my management side or just like my personal side, it's like, I have have people that are always looking in my best interests and i think i got lucky i was i've been doing that since day one like my first manager worked for me for free for the first year because he just like

believed in what i did i was like i don't need a manager i was making so much money before i paid taxes like just selling mixtapes and djing like i was like i bought a i bought a property in philadelphia like in my first year of like learning how to hustle the system of being a DJ. And then I was like, damn, but there's, he was like, there's more to be done though. Like, he's like, there's more you can do than just living in Philly and like buying, being the biggest DJ here.

And I think he gave me that motivation to like be bigger. And from him, you know, another management group happened. And then I've had a lucky journey. I've been the same with the same team for, you know, 20 years. A lot of people don't get that. But I also think I was very visionary in what I want to do. So if you're like a young person and like you get sucked up by management or whatever, they might have a vision for you or they might not, or they might not have the right vision for you, or they might not give you the room to be yourself. Then you're going to switch like 40 managers and you might not ever find, you know, you need so it's important to find people you know that really believe in you but also let you be yourself because you got

to find that because you're going to be that's all you got at the end of the day you can lose a million managers and a million people but you can always start over and just be you reminded me of the avicii documentary that i saw which was a real pivotal moment in my life because um yeah so i spent four weeks at home in 2019 and I was very much being dragged around. We had a thousand employees. So I was being dragged around the place. And that documentary taught me the importance of saying no to stuff. A hundred percent.

Like Avicii, I feel like I never, his, he was probably like one of my biggest influences, even though he's younger than me. I remember hanging out with a couple of times. I was just like, man,

this guy, this guy's a genius, but like, he doesn't feel like he's in, he's in his own skin you know because i don't think he ever had that chance to be who he be be what he wanted to be he was like he was almost like a became like a machine because his success would happen so quick um but that happens a lot that's like the one story in the dj world but in the pop world

that happens like way too much i think are you good at saying those stuff no i say yes to everything but i'm also like i have really thick skin i feel like my personality is enormous i can also like i can i can find my way through things i always say yes and then i'll say no for the next time if it sucks but yeah i've done everything you know and i'm like uh you know this isn't the right thing i move on or even if it's a studio session i might go get breakfast and i might never come back you know whatever it is I'll give everything a chance you know but

I know I know now some things you know my management knows me now to where they some things don't even get to me the questions don't even come because they know it's like a no

or they know I'll say yes and it'll be a bad yes Thick skin you started talking a lot about mental health over the last couple of years your partnership with Calm as well

I was reading about mental health in the DJing world, but mental health amongst men anyway. What's your journey been with your own mental health? I think, you know, just being put as like, you know, whatever celebrity or whatever it is, being attention always on you is you're going to have so many critics and you're going to have so many, you know, the love is cool, but nobody really cares about like all the adoration you get. You care about the people that don't like you and that you get caught up in that, even if it's only like 5%,

but they really want to be vocal about, they don't like you or they don't love you. That bothers you no matter who you are, you know, eventually I had to just like, wow, these people suck. Like just whatever you're going to, you're never going to get away from those, the people that like want to always be critics. They just want to get a rise out of you. I think eventually you just got to say, fuck it. The people that are around me,

their opinions is what matters. Like the people that I trust and you can't like kind of sit in the opinion of people that either don't know you or maybe build an opinion about you from, you know, whatever it is. Cause when it comes to social media, it's like a game, you know, it's not like you it's, it's like, I was talking about Conor McGregor earlier today. I'm like, he's like the biggest heel, most paid athlete last year, even though he didn't fight because he's like, people love to

hate him, you know? So he built a brand out of just being that person. Um, but then you got to take it with, you got to take the good and the bad with it i mean if you if you want to be in this business which is like i guess showbiz like you said the comedians the djs i'm like kind of like a popular dj i'm more like a like a people might go to my shows and i even do my music because they know my brand and that kind of sucks because they don't and you don't you don't know if they don't know they're gonna get but um because i'm on that pedestal you're just gonna get eyes on you for everything so i feel like you just have to if you want if you want the success if you want to be at this level you got to

like just take it and if i didn't want it i would just back up you know but i can take it so i feel like it's something that i had to learn to grow into myself and just be like okay be comfortable because what really matters is my team you know who my family thinks about me what my team thinks about me and i think that's those people will give you that motivation to go every day have you made a conscious effort to like shorten that circle by like logging off i read somewhere that someone else has your twitter password now and you don't really have it and have you made a conscious effort i've been on twitter in like five years but i think um yeah it kind of sucks i hit or miss because i mean even tiktok i

was like slow to do that but then like i said if you want your if you want your your brand to exist it's got to be there like because that's like you know there's more eyeballs on tiktok than they're on youtube nowadays so you really you have to be part of that conversation with the audience um it took me a while like i had to find people that actually could help me run that because i couldn't do it myself and i couldn't be you know in every day long like videotaping and doing dances or whatever so i had to find different ways to make those things work for myself um it wasn't easy in the beginning but uh yeah i don't stay on i don't stay on social too much but then of course during this album cycle

i'm on there i'm like having to always participate but you know luckily i think i've got great fans i've got great people get great response to my album it wasn't that difficult but every once in a while you have to get you take your mind off it because you can get caught up you know well what made you start talking about mental health and being a bit of an advocate for that you said that a lot of people should speak about it a lot more where did that inspiration i think probably after the avicii situation and then you know i work with a lot of rappers. I think I had a hip hop album that came out like two years ago, three years ago, maybe four years ago. It's called California. And I had Lil Xan and I had Lil Peep on it.

And I had Trippie Redd and I was working with XXXTentacion. I just remember I did this whole circuit working with all these young rappers. And they were like really young. They were like 19, 20. And the studio sessions were so weird and crazy. And then these rappers all started to die. really young they were like 19 20 and the studio sessions were so weird and crazy and then these these rappers all started to die like they all started like you know little peep overdosed on um opiates and you know x was was shot but he also had such a crazy vision on life and experiences and his he was like went through so much and i've saw i saw what was happening

these young guys because they were getting so popular so quick. And I was really, I just like, damn, these guys all need like a big brother. So I think just with those guys, a lot of them, I was helping them out, making decisions. But just seeing how crazy it is to be a 20 year old right now is much more difficult than when I was there. When I was there, you literally had your group of friends

and that's all you knew, people on your street. Now everybody knows who you are or can know who you are or have some kind of opinion about you. And I think you have to find ways to, like I said earlier, block that out and just concentrate on like being the best you, which just sounds like a cliche,

but you really have to compete with just yourself every day, not everybody else. One of the things that I saw in that Avicii doc as well was he was suffering with pretty severe anxiety i remember the scenes of him being in that hotel room and his manager saying we gotta go and him saying i i'm not going yeah have you ever felt that anxiety have you ever felt that that kind of crippling no i think you know i've i've deal like people like close to my life have anxiety and they have a tax law and I have to talk them down sometimes. So I know how,

how it feels. And that's just like in the day to day life. Me, I feel like I still like the stage I've never been. And I've also, like I said, I've also made a concerted effort to make the team like make me comfortable. You know,

that I'm not going to talk about like the people on the team, but like, they just like, they just didn't care. Like no one cared about him or what he was feeling i remember being at shows and i was like he played before me in vegas and he would be just missing he would play like two hours later and he would have to get fucked up to get on stage because he just couldn't do it he couldn't be up there he couldn't be on the on a pedestal and i feel i can feel that way sometimes like on this tour you know just jet lag jet lag alone. You're like, you're like nodding out at dinner and you're like, oh, I got to go be excited for this crowd. And I'm really good at like making that work for myself now.

So these people, you know, I owe them this experience. But yes, I take a lot more time for myself now. Like I'm like, I don't I don't need to do these anymore. I'm telling them like this is this is over for me. This is like something I would do three years ago. It's important to take that that away out the equation, I'll feel a lot better. But yeah, you got to make those personal choices and you got to, like I said, people that are, that are hungry, like me and you, that just, that when they get on the train, they're just like

going full throttle. You do need something to say like, okay, it's, it's okay to like not go a hundred miles an hour all the time. You can like go like at a, at a strolling pace or something. And I guess for you, from what I read, a lot of that was your kids as well right yeah when you when your first child was born you talked about that being a really pivotal moment it taught you that time the value of time and i think my first kid when i had my first son lockett i just i was like i went i actually went faster so i was like i did i was like also as a father your kids i was like I found a connection with my sons when I was they were like five and four years old when they were like because really the mother's like everything they're not leaving her sight they're not around they're not they don't really give a shit about

like their fathers I felt like that in the beginning my son but so I was like I got a kid now my life's about to get really complicated and I think all my my best work happened around them because you said time management was like okay i have like saturday sunday or have like wednesday off i'm gonna go to the studio for 16 hours every other day because i don't want to do anything else this is the time i have like those five years i did all of my biggest records and my next time was born and my time got even crazier and then um you just kind of like like i said you got to manage time better each time like you gotta gotta figure out how to make it work i'm still figuring it out you know now my boys are entering like the teenage years like they're 11 7 so they're asking me questions now that they never would before like

i'm like having to give them like you know boy and man advice which i was like this is cool they're having conversations that i can relate to them as much as they can relate to me before it was like we just baby shark and legos and stuff when you um talking about your three boys when you you did this really sweet post um giving a bit of a shout out to their mothers and in that sentence you said i'm still a work in progress and i was really intrigued by that why did you say i'm still a work in progress as it relates to a post about that the mothers and your boys i think because you know my my boys i want them to i want them like i want to instill them the same discipline that my father has given me you know which i don't know how to do that like i don't think my father knew either like he had i remember going to my father's rooms and he had like books about like being the best dad you know

like i remember like i was like i was like I didn't think that about till I was later. I'm like, damn, maybe I should check that book out. You know, like, I'm like, it seemed silly when I was younger, but I think being the person I am, I'm also like this, like I said, my personality is so big that I feel like I, I'm kind of alpha even for my children.

Like, I'm like, when I'm off break, I'm like, let's go snowboarding, let's go to the basketball court. And they're just like, dad, relax. They want to watch TV or something, you know? I'm like, and I'm like, I'm just like, why don't they want the basketball court. And they're just like, dad, relax. We want to watch TV or something. You know, I'm like, and I'm like, why don't they want to do all this stuff with me? Like, I don't know. I'm like, they think I'm like the crazy person that comes over and like takes them away to do crazy stuff all the time. And it's like, it's a big distraction in their life a lot of times.

So I've got to figure out how to like be with them, you know, more than just be their insane sports dad. I got to like be their friend friend too so that's like what i'm talking about things like that when you you know just even like sitting with my son my seven year old and like watching cartoons or watching him play minecraft on his ipad is so much more important to him if i do that for an hour then like take him on like a trip to nepal or something which i've done you know like it's like they're like they remember that but they actually remember this time and on the couch with me a lot more. I feel like the other thing that we were talking about just then is this, um, just came to mind is

when I had Olympians on this podcast, they talked to me about this thing called gold medal depression and Israel Adesanya came here, the UFC champion, um, two weeks ago. And he said that the worst day of his life was the day after he won the belt. Yeah. He said he went straight into therapy. And I saw a similar tone and a similar narrative. And when you spoke about, in fact, some of the worst days are the day after the high. Yeah. And then you actually said that you have to kind of suppress the high

to avoid the low. Yeah, always. Because I feel like it gets addicting. Because I mean, likerael healing he does like what like two big fights a year like i'm like doing like which is i'm not knocking him because he'll be the fucking amazing but um i have to do like 250 like shows you know like sometimes and every night might be bigger some nights might be lame you got to just take it in stride every once i'm like damn that was awesome and i'm like appreciate the like you have to have gratitude

for that but i mean if it's going to be your lifestyle every night people are always like you don't drink or you're djing like i'm djing like 200 nights a year i can't be drunk i'll be dead like it's like it's like i don't know it's like not even why even ask that question it's like this is still a job for me i found ways to like have energy and like have this feeling and like it's like it's actually i think it's mental work to do that but you always if you're just going to be like in these peaks and valleys all time that's not healthy and i see a lot of people that are other creators and it's crazy but like the best creators are really like have bipolar tendencies i've noticed that like some of my my favorite people that collaborate with i've noticed they have and some of them aren't addressing it and it's like

it leads to their six their failures in some parts like i always see like i think my my the most creative people like have are always dealing with that you know whether it was bowie or uh other djs like i see that a lot in my peers and i think it's important to because they love that high too they're chasing that hive like that experience you know it's just like a drug like having like fans you know scream being at a festival but eventually you just kind of like drown out the noise and just figure out just it's making more of a job because you can't just live like every night's like the biggest party of your life you know because then it will be there's gonna be a big downer and you've changed yourself you said you've changed yourself to be like

present and energetic without letting the adrenaline fill your body and then staying up till 7am. Also, yeah, it's hard to sleep. You know, like when you do a show, like I'm leaving Vegas, I'm doing like the great party. We like do 1 to 3am and I'm like, have a little vibe after the show. And then it's like, damn, I gotta go to Bex. I gotta be up at nine and take my kids. I'm like, how do you like wind down? Because that's really hard to do too.

I had the tiniest dose of this. We took this podcast, we made it a musical and we did three nights at the Palladium. And then, so I started going to sleep at 7am. So I'd come off stage at the Palladium, maybe midnight, come back here and I'd sit here at the table.

Just like, it's impossible. That's why I'm touching this coffee. Yeah. Like I'm like, you know, yeah. So you have to literally,

I think you have to take in strides, you know, cause there's always going to be, be i think i think deep down inside of me if i like lose all of the if i label drop me i couldn't make music anymore i'm not djing i don't really you know like i flop so hard i feel like i can start over again that's like something i feel inside me okay maybe i would be like i love furniture maybe i'll be a carpenter whatever it is that's just the thing i'm saying i just feel like i feel like orenter. Whatever it is. That's just the thing I'm saying. I just feel like, I feel like,

or a pizza maker, whatever it is, I always feel like if you have that feeling inside you that you can lose everything and be okay with it, that's, maybe that's the key to success.

Then you know it's, all this is just like a facade. Like it's really like, I'll be comfortable as long as I get to do something I love again. It doesn't have to be huge. I don't have to be rich,

but I feel like any moment if I got taken away, I'll have my family and I'll have to be huge I don't have to be rich but I feel like any moment if I got taken away I have my family I have my kids and I'll gladly go and do something with them and live a humble life

I always feel like I'm ready for that you know and your new album this is what 20 years into your career now and it's your second full length

album since like Florida yeah that's that's happened because once I started going to this, to the studio in LA, I was like this, you don't make solo albums like Florida.

You make albums for other people. You know, I'm just a DJ. I'm like a brand. This brand is limited to some level, but if I work on Britney Spears album, I can make this much money or I can make a hit that streams like this. Or if I do this album and it wasn't until I think we did major laser i was like okay well at least i can own this project

also make the same size records and take all of it you know that became kind of like just the business side of it i was like this is a lot better you know now and this i think finally dip was the point where like okay i have no other brands to put it in this is gonna be my records now kind of like that's kind of how this album happened. Because that's still, it's a dance album, but I worked on it as a songwriter, you know, because you hear the songs, they got verse, chorus, verse. They're not straight techno records.

They're not straight acid records. They're just like, they're kind of built like pop records. 20 years in, releasing this album, what are you sick of in the process in the industry what are you just like i hate this shit uh i think going through he throws like uh the liquids come on like what is up with that if i could not travel ever again that was i mean i literally had to spend like 30 minutes there yesterday because like i was like they were looking for this one tiny eye cream that was in the bottom of a freaking, I was like, bro, you can have all this stuff.

Just take it, take it away from me. But the travel is the worst. You know, I wish I could teleport to each show, but that's probably the worst thing. If I could just not, if I could just sit home. I also got a really nice house now in Malibu. So I'm like, don't want to go on tour anymore. I kind of want to sit there.

I love, I love the, when I was on Twitch, I on Twitch I was DJing I just didn't make any money I was like but uh it was it's cool I haven't been to Europe in three years so it's you know it actually feels brand new to me in this in this line of work the whole audience changes like every three years too like kids that were ravers and go to clubs when they're 24 when they're 27 they got full-time jobs and their little cousins have been I've done like it's 20 i've done like seven of those generations i feel like and they're still coming out and seeing me play so i've been really lucky based on the life you've lived when your three boys get to you know 16 18 years old and they come to you and say that i need advice on like what i should pursue how do i become sick yeah

what is the general advice is there anything that stands out to you? Or is it just. Man, I will take them on the road with me, I guess. That's the only thing I can do. That's the best, that's the best advice I can give them. Like,

this is what I do every day. Just so you know, you think I'm like doing some crazy shit. I actually have to wake up and go to the gym. I have to go. We're doing some press in front of that to get ready for the show. We're going to do dinner with the promoter as a nice favor. And we're going to go to the concert.

Oh, there's appearance afterwards. This is what I do. And I go back in the morning i'm going to the studio first thing in the morning just to show them what it's like what it takes like and this is like you know 10 years in just to let them know it's what the process is like that's the best i can do i can actually show them that you know a lot of kids wouldn't have that wouldn't have their parents to give them something like that um but yeah that's what i trained with george foreman jr he's a boxing trainer and his father he said that he didn't really understand anything about life till his

father took him to the on the road to see him fight and took him to like the gym sessions and how much work he did and i was in the middle of like george's like uh the griddle he was doing the former grill era and um he said it just like something clicked inside of him they changed him inside why the gym? You've mentioned that twice. Is that because. Oh, because I think I just, I actually every day I have to go to the gym. It's like the one thing that I have to do to like make me feel like normal.

Because I, the jet lag for one, but then I also traveling. And then I think I need like an hour. If it's yoga, if it's something, I just need like to sweat for an hour every day to feel normal. I don't know what it is, but it's been like that for like the last 10 years it's not a very healthy lifestyle i mean i don't drink very often but this covid got me into drinking again because it was a little bit boring to go to eat dinner every night so i think i'm i'm trying to reset that a little bit when someone's obsessive and they achieve success and they're flying 300, but they have 300 shows a year. I can't,

it's an inconceivable number in my mind. Their relationships in terms of their romantic relationships at like how on earth does one maintain good romantic relationships when they're that obsessed? I've had, I mean, it's, it's, it's been hard.

I had a girlfriend during the COVID times and she was like, great energy. She understood my life. Really, you got to understand your lifestyle because it's, it's so fast paced. Also, you're going to be,

it's about you. It's like, you're the, you're the artist, right? It's like, and when I was dating people that were in the music industry

in the beginning, I didn't understand at all, like that they're two different people. One's the person I know and then one's the artist, you know, because that's a whole facade. Like going to see them on stage, you go see them do two different people one's the person i know and then one's the artist you know because that's a whole facade like going to see him on stage you go see them do this it's not the person that you see in the bedroom at the end of the night or whatever it's different i

couldn't figure out i couldn't figure that out as a young person like and that's why i don't think it's probably not that healthy to date someone else that's also in the music business because it's like really it's like smoke and mirrors a lot between what they're doing what they what their what their shows are like and who they are as a person and who they are as a as like an artist is different do you value that do you value romantic connection is it a big i do priority yeah i do i have i think you know i have two uh mothers of my children and like finding the balance with them has been like the hardest thing but it's like so great now. It's like so peaceful. Like they, everybody's in like a, everybody loves each other and like my kids are all happy

and the mothers are happy and everybody's healthy. That was been the, and then, you know, if I have a new girlfriend, I brought her into the mix and they liked her too. It was like, so I've like found this kind of harmony in it, you know, but there's always turbulence, you know, having a, we're having a fight now, like with school, my son goes to high school school so i have to like navigate that problem there's

like new problems all the time you know never you're never going to figure everything out are you difficult to be in a relationship with uh i think no because i'm literally like down i'm just whatever i'm along for the ride i'm like whatever but then of course i have these kind of scorpio tendencies i have like zero emotions so like it's hard to really zero zero emotions yeah there's like nothing you're gonna get nothing from me most time i feel like yeah so a lot of girls they but if you spend enough time with me you know the real me but i think it's it takes a while you're gonna get nothing from me most of the time in terms of emotions yeah i'm really emotionless emotionlessness i feel like i don't i don't show a lot of emotion you know i'm kind of like i think this one got for my dad i'm just like

like an army guy you know i'm like out here just like saving fate like poker face i'm always like it's hard to get through my exterior um is that a good thing do you think for like in terms of mental health it's just yeah i mean i found people that could deal with it, you know, probably not a good thing, no. But it's been like that. I think that's also the thing you have to put on to be, like I said, be in this world too. Like to like, it's definitely something to protect me, but at the same time, you know,

if you get the right person, you give her everything. I sat here with Patrice Evra. He's the, you're a football fan, you're an Arsenal i sat here with patrice evera he's the you're a football fan you're an arsenal fan right so patrice ever was the the famous manchester united left back and he said something similar to me he said he grew up on the streets of france drug dealing his he watched his brothers in his house die from drug overdoses in the in the bathroom and then his head teacher at the time like sexually molested him so he put up this and to survive on the streets of france at the time he put up this big kind of external outer wall tough skin as you might have called it

and that served him to becoming a elite athlete it served him to a point and then one day his girl turned to him on the sofa and said are you happy and he was like five back yeah i'm happy yeah but then she kept persisting right like angrily right that that defense and then she kept persisting and he just broke down and he'd never told anybody what happened to him with his head master and he told her at like 35 years old and he said to me while he was sat here that journey of like opening up and not being the tough guy anymore actually changed his life it changed his relationship with his kids it meant that he finally talked about how he felt for the first time even that made him feel vulnerable and that's why i asked the question is it is it a good thing like to be you know i'm i

think i'm i'm very selfish because at the end of the day i'm never lonely on the road and i think it's because i've never fell in love with a girl like i never felt like ah this is love because if really if it was love it's love i think the love is like love like you i may have my heart broken maybe i was in love a little bit but like i never felt like life-changing love until my son was born and i was like that the love i have with my my firstborn son and then my second my third it's like the connection though i'm like damn no matter what this kid stuck with me like this is like my life partner for real like this is like somebody that i have to make this person a better human like that was something that when that happened

it became like my go-to like i'm always gonna this is the this is the person that i care the most about all three of these boys it really that was the first time i understood love was when i had children you know maybe that sounds weird to you but just feels like that's undeniable like no matter what they do i'm gonna love them like you know do you believe in love romantically maybe maybe not maybe i don't I don't have it I mean, I'm still like playing the game like I'm still you know Like, you know trying to find a great Woman to settle down with our previous guests always write a question for the next guest and then

Funnily enough, I never tell the guests who the previous person was he wrote a question for you didn't know who was writing it For he wrote Why do you exist exist maybe it is to bring joy and inspiration to people and maybe have you know and some and maybe new music and exploration into culture i hope and then in like a more spiritual way it is to just add something to the world that wasn't there before because everything you create in the fabric of time and space is something that's brand new and that's what we that's only what we add so those are three answers amen thank you so much and thank you for for coming here your new album diplo which me and my girlfriend sat on this

table a couple of days ago listening to it's remarkable that someone 20 years into their career can create a project that feels so fresh and relevant and exciting at the same time. I honestly, I played the record for my girlfriend. We're going through the record. Did you guys do it in podcasts? No, no, we were eating dinner here. We were eating dinner here.

And I was like, oh, Diplo's coming in. And so I started playing the new records in the album. And she's from France and Portugal. She lives in Indonesia. She goes, I know that one in Indonesia she goes I know that one she goes I know that one because a lot of the she's a raver

yeah well yeah and it was and I literally had to check the year in which the album had dropped because they the songs felt so familiar

yeah and that really took me off guard but um I'll be honest we added a couple tracks that were already out yeah I know that yeah yeah

because from the view numbers I think the streams go up first week a little bit but uh yeah but um there's there there's they're part of the project i mean i had i got really lucky here in the uk i had the song paul wolford called looking for me that was like so big here i was so it was like my my probably my biggest solo record i've ever had in anywhere was that was like number one ireland i think it was number two here but um i feel like the UK really if anything the dance culture they understand it like they get it it's been a while

you guys have like real dance projects like you know Chemical Brothers, Chase the Status, Bicep, uh Disclosure you have like the idea of like dance projects which we don't have in America we just have like a bunch of like scummy DJs going out every night and playing in Las Vegas but we're trying to build it I think it's important but here you guys have this culture. It's amazing. Well, thank you for blessing us with another project. And it's, it's legendary that it's so resonant 20 years into your career. So it's really, really inspiring. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Huge pleasure. Thank you. Thanks for watching!