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Hipster Runoff, Gorilla vs. Bear, Diplo
Turntable.fm
Monday, June 27

Better than: Listening to your friends DJ on turntable.fm.

Turntable.fm is a newish "social DJing" site that basically brings the chat-room concept to the world of online radio stations. DJs can congregate in rooms and add their favorite tracks to a queue, and listeners can chat and rate the songs that spin into their orbit as either "lame" or "awesome"; if a song gets too much negative feedback, the DJ responsible for playing it will be skipped.

The site is still in beta mode; only people whose Facebook friends are already using it are allowed inside. This exclusivity (or "exclusivity") prompted Gorilla vs. Bear and Hipster Runoff to throw a virtual festival on the service—called, naturally, #VIPFest, and starring Diplo, Pitchfork head Ryan Schreiber, Hipster Runoff's "Carles," and a bunch of online rubberneckers.

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​Nicola Roberts's former mate in the British hit factory Girls Aloud, Cheryl Cole, is somewhere licking her wounds over being sacked from The X Factor. What better time, then, for Roberts to release an absolute banger of a single? "Beat Of My Drum," produced by Diplo, sounds like somebody created a track after listening to a bunch of 45s playing at once at maximum volume and wanting to channel the jolt of that experience into one song—it's part Go! Team, part Spice Girls, part "Run The World (Girls)," and all sugar-rush thrill. Listen after the jump.

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​After leaking in demo form last night, Beyoncé's "Girls (Who Run The World)," the first single from her imminent album, has appeared in fuller form. The Diplo-produced track, which samples Major Lazer's "Pon de Floor," is a bit overstuffed, but fairly enjoyable. It starts off sounding like a Willow Smith song, thanks to its schoolyard chants about "girls" over a militaristic beat--here we might remind you, also, that B turns 30 this September--but then Beyoncé's sideways approach to melody comes in when she starts singing, and the song's pretty unmistakably hers from that point on.

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"For me, Twitter is like my diary. I hope someone saves it so I don't have to write it all again when I'm 75."

​Where do we even start with someone like Diplo? Wes Pentz is a DJ at his core, but he's also a producer (having worked with Lil Jon, Kanye West, and most notoriously M.I.A.), the founder of left-field record label Mad Decent, and one half of dancehall production pair Major Lazer. Back in the mid-aughts, he and fellow Hollertronix cohort/Philly local Low Budget adopted an attitude of doing whatever the heck they wanted, just as long as it sounded interesting and made people dance. From their first mixtape Never Scared to their sweat-box dance parties in a small Ukranian club, the pair threw together '80s hits, rap, Baltimore club, reggae, rock, and everything from snap to baile funk side by side. It was something that wasn't necessarily done back then, but has been embraced by party DJs ever since, introducing crowds to different kinds of music they might not initially have wanted to hear. And that's what Diplo's still best at today.

He gets a lot of heat for it, too. While people once went to him for his unusual tastes in international and urban dance scenes -- something you can see from the Vybz Cartel or P.E.A.C.E. collaborations on his first solo album, Florida -- both the spotlight and the criticisms have grown much harsher with his budding fame. And, to be frank, we're not so sure he deserves it. At the end of the day, BlackBerry commercials and Alexander Wang ads aside, Diplo's Mad Decent label is still something we'll turn to to hear music from the middle of nowhere (or our own backyards) that would probably go unheard otherwise. We chatted with the DJ about life in L.A., Major Lazer's upcoming sophomore album (catch the group at Terminal 5 Saturday night as part of Downtown Records' anniversary party), his involvement in Heaps Decent (a music initiative for underprivileged kids), and "faking it until you make it."

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Nas, imploring everyone to Tweet #heineken. Pics by Puja, more below.

​Nas/Cee Lo/Pete Rock/Diplo/J Cole
Some Random Warehouse
Saturday, November 13

Better Than: The same show sponsored by almost anyone else.

"How can you not have a good time when this is free?" shouted hip-hop artist Bua as we walked into Saturday night's Heineken-sponsored Inspire Encore show. Not only that, but it came with perks: Along with performances by Nas, Cee-Lo, Pete Rock, and Diplo, the event featured a line of food carts (tacos, hot dogs, Jamaican-beef patties), Internet-equipped laptops, ping-pong and foosball tables, and a six-hour open bar. As for the "surprise guest"? It wasn't Kanye.

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Just an example of the clientele here. Pics by Puja, more below.

​Electric Zoo Day II
Randall's Island
Sunday, September 5

Not only did this Labor Day weekend mark the last day to wear white without glares of disapproval, it also brought Made Event's second-annual Electric Zoo festival to Randall's Island. Fashion clichés were hardly a concern for the approximately 26,000 in attendance (many content with wearing neon -- or close to nothing -- instead) as they flocked to the two-day rave that featured 67 DJs sprawled over four tents. Hellbent on being part of it all, we headed over on Sunday afternoon.

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With the caveat that humans must take Diplo's Twitter updates with a grain (several grains, probably) of salt--although his version of what happened the night of the Grammys was probably way better than anything that actually did happen--everyone else in the above Tweet is definitely on the real production team for M.I.A.'s newest. So why not Sleigh Bells? [@Diplo]

Update: The Sleigh Bells manager confirms: "Yes, Derek [Miller, who writes the music for Sleigh Bells] did production work on the album."

​Given that our favorite moment of last night's Grammy ceremony was this stray reaction shot of Beyonce, mid-"Earth Song," we are thrilled that someone produced the inevitable animated GIF. Speaking of Beyonce, have you heard Diplo/Major Lazer/Elephant Man's "Halo" remix? Pretty good! Like, way better than "Halo." Plus Surfer Blood declared war on us over our Grammy coverage, but that's nothing new. See you at SXSW, homies! [h/t Golden Fiddle for that GIF]

​It'd be pretty unsportsmanlike for us not to note the emergence of Diplo's long-speculated-about Gucci Mane remix mixtape, given that we ran a whole long thinkpiece pegged to its release back in December. So: actual passion or vacant spin? Street movement "free," or hood cliche "free"? For that matter: Free Gucci, or Fuck Diplo? You decide. [Mad Decent]

​Gucci Mane's new album, The State vs. Radric Davis is in stores today, but the insanely prolific, remarkably consistent Atlanta rapper has been in jail since November 12th. This is Gucci's second stint in jail for a parole violation this year. Both sentences stem from a 2005 incident in which Gucci attacked a promoter, served six months for the attack, and was released under the agreement that he would take rehabilitation classes and do some community service--which he's now failed to do, and gone to jail for failing to do...twice.

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