Popular American DJ-record producer Diplo has been a regular visitor to perform at various festivals down the years. He is also a huge fan of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, and calls the Badshah a legend. Bet you didn’t’ know that. Do you remember a couple of moons ago, Diplo had infact recorded a track called Phurrrr along with Pritam for Imtiaz Ali''s film ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’. He also loved the movie ‘Gully Boy’.

The deejay, whose real name is Thomas Wesley Pentz, is one of the most dynamic forces in music today. He was born in Tupelo, Mississippi (the same place where the King of Rock n Roll Elvis Presley was born). Although he lived in a few different cities in the South, he grew up mainly in South Florida in Miami with his parents Barbara and Thomas. He spent his youth in his father's bait shop and fixated on manatees, alligators, and dinosaurs with hopes of becoming a paleontologist. Now it’s easy to know why he’s known as Diplo or Diplodocus, a name hederives from his childhood fascination with dinosaurs.

But his interest changed with time and he pursued an education in film studies, starting at a Florida University of Central Florida in 1997. During his time in UCF, he became a DJ at local radio station WPRK, the radio station at Rollins College. He switched over to Japan for a change in lifestyle where he worked as a teacher, but was soon back to the US and moved to Philadelphia to continue his studies at the Temple University where he first garnered attention as a DJ in 2003.

He sent a demo tape of his beat concoctions to Will Ashon, founder of U.K. independent hip-hop label Big Dada Records, and once signed to the label, he relocated to Philadelphia. One of the greatest sources from which he takes inspiration is Timbaland. His other influences are DJ Shadow, Jay Swift, and Pete Rock.

To support himself during and after graduating from University, Pentz took on different jobs in Philadelphia, anything to get a few dollars in his pocket. He worked as a social worker, after-school mentor, movie theater employee, and gig-by-gig DJ. But the meager earnings were still insufficient to pay the rent that led to him almost losing out on musical decisions he wanted to try his hand at.

With his mash-up mixtapes, he found and created a sound where his musical tastes '80s pop, electronica, Dirty South hip-hop, and his major influence, Miami bass music intersect were heard. More than all this, he needed the people to help him. It was the after-school students who exposed him to crunk and Baltimore club music. Pentz met up with the like-minded DJ Low Budget and pooled their resources to start up their own club nights in Philadelphia, which they branded Hooked on Hollertronix in 2003. What began as a fun night of genre-warping dance music, blossomed into an underground subculture, drawing out crowds from all over the East Coast. The Hollertronix name began to be synonymous with parties featuring guests like Maluca Mala, Bun B, Spank Rock, M.I.A., among others.

It was not long before Diplo (as he came to be known)decided to move on and build a studio where music would become his full-time focus. With this goal in mind, he built The Mausoleum, a video and recording studio, record label office, gallery, and event space in Philadelphia. Since its inception, The Mausoleum has become the home to duplicating by artists like Christina Aguilera, Shakira, M.I.A., Santigold, Spank Rock, Plastic Little, Blaqstarr, Paper Route Gangstaz, and hosted musical performance by Glass Candy, Skream, Boys Noize, Nicos Gun, and more.

Diplo and Budget soon released their own mixtapes together as well as individually. One of the mixtapes Never Scared was listed as one of the New York Times' top albums of 2003.

The following year, Big Dada released Diplo’s solo debut album, ‘Florida’, a more down tempo piece focusing on melody and instrumentals. The album was pressed twice, first with a CD and the second with a CD and DVD. The DVD was created by System D 128, another artist who has collaborated with Diplo on some audio and video projects. Before the DVD accompaniment, another DVD surfaced called ‘Diplo: "Banned in Libya" which was released by Money Studies, the first label to release a solo project by Diplo under his original DJ name Diplodocus. It was a 45 rpm record called Thingamajawn for which there is also a music video System D-128 directed. Similar to the ‘Florida’ DVD, "Banned in Libya" was also released as an experimental audio and video mix of some of Diplo's original music blended with a number of other unidentified sources. On this DVD one can see how he brought Brazil dance music of the ghettos to the US.

The music began to overflow all around, his mashed-up vocals and beats produced a considerable number of acclaimed mix CDs and 12" records, some that were top line while the others brought in interest to new listeners.

Sri Lankan singer M.I.A who was scouting around with just a few hits, met up with Diplo where he was infact spinning her tracks in a club in London. Post the gig; the duo hit it off, eventually collaborating on a mixtape 2004’s Piracy Fund Terrorism Vol 1 that introduced M.I. A to the world beyond the UK. Diplo played along and directed more music at the Brazilian market and youth. It got lapped up easily. It was no surprise, that when he established his own label, Mad Decent Records, around 2005; his first signee was the funk carioca group Bondo do Role. At the same time he also went on tour with M.I.A on her 2005 Arular Tour.

Even after the tour, Diplo continued to work with M.I.A. and, through her, met London DJ Switch. Together, they created the Grammy-nominated track Paper Planes that went to number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. This was a super hit for M.I.A something she was waiting to push her fledging career. The song made a heavy impact on the alternative electro-pop scene, amassing rave reviews from music critics and indie kids alike. The song not only gave M.I.A a start, but also Diplo was happy to have made a name for himself too.

Talking about Grammy awards, Diplo was nominated for a second Grammy Award in 2012, for Best Rap Song for Look at Me Now which he shared with Chris Brown, Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes and again in 2013 and 2016 in the category Producer of the Year, Non Classical. In 2016, he won the Grammy Award for Best Dance /Electronic Album for ‘Skrillerx and Diplo Present Jack U’ and Best Dance Recording for Where Are Ü Now his super hit with Justin Bieber from Bieber’s ‘Purpose’ album.

Moving on the success of their collaboration, he along with M.I.A and producer Switch created a Jamaican dancehall project and cartoon series titled Major Lazer. Since then, Diplo has worked on production and mixtape projects with many other pop artists such as Gwen Stefani, Madonna, Britney Spears, Usher, Snoop Dogg, Chris Brown and many others.

Diplo also formed the LSD super group consisting of British musician and rapper Labrinth, Australian singer -songwriter Sia and himself. ‘LSD’ is the debut studio album by the music group which was originally scheduled to be released by Columbia Records in November 2018, but was pushed to April 2019.

Diplo has also teamed with fellow producer Mark Ronson, to form the duo Silk City and together did a collaboration with Dua Lipa on her song Electricity that helped him score his third Grammy in 2019 for Best Dance Recording.

August 2019 saw Diplo adopt the moniker Thomas Wesley and issue the moody country music single Heartless, a collaboration with singer Morgan Wallen, followed by a new track and video Lonely featuring Grammy nominated multi-platinum trio Jonas Brothers. His last track is So Long featuring American singer Cam, which hopefully should appear on Diplo’s country EP soon.

The life of a touring DJ certainly has its drawbacks at times. Diplo is away from home, with his two sons Lockett and Lazer living with their grandmother due to the COVID 19 lockdown. He acknowledged that his work has put him in close proximity to hundreds of people over the last several weeks. Responsibly, he's taking the necessary precautions to ensure he's cleared of the virus before spending any close time with his sons.

The COVID 19 has given a new philip to the music industry with live streams happening left, right and centre all over the world and even in India. Diplo is not far in behind and alongwith with DJ Dillion Fancis, he recently gave fans a live stream back-to-back set to remember. Diplo's live stream sessions dubbed "Coronight Fever" has seen the producer performing a multi genre two hour set almost daily for his fans.

Diplo, who is one of the most dynamic forces in music today, is collaborating with various artists on the planet to make some ear catching sounds. His visits to India are short with no personal access to him. Diplo was in India performing at the Vh1 Supersonic music festival in Pune in February 2020, but then again, waiting for him backstage was an endless wait. He came, performed and left without really meeting up. We hope so he does make a longer visit and we can meet up with him one day.

By Verus Ferreira