Major Lazer

Diplo, known to his mum as Thomas Penz, isn't just a kick-ass DJ and musical artist. He's also 50 per cent of Major Lazer, who are coming our way as part of Field Day. We spoke to the Philadelphian about...

...the formation of the Sydney based non-profit youth organisation Heaps Decent with FBi DJs Andrew Levins and Nina Agzarian. Well, Levins and I dated for a year... OK, Levins is a friend who has been supporting Mad Decent for years, playingunderground stuff on the radio there. And Nina is just amazing: she had connections, like her mother works in juvenile detention centres, so it just became a worthwhile project. Their attitudes are just so great and the whole idea of working with kids and club music makes it so it's not so taboo. Doing volunteerism is such a nerdy thing to do, but they make it so it's fucking cool. And these kids are making music that's cooler than what you're making.

...loving dancehall as a musical genre, despite the homophobia and sexism.
I like dancehall for other reasons. I like it because of the energy and subject matter; some of the songwriting is the best that's ever come out of music. It sucks that people's personal opinions affect what they do in music, but that's just what it is. But there are a lot of gay kids who love dancehall, and play the craziest homophobic lyrics. It's just like gay kids playing these  ‘burn gay people' records [laughs]. I don't think a lot of these kids take it seriously.

...dream collaborations.
Recently I've been in the studio with this band from England called Rolo Tomassi: they're fucking cool. I'm not gonna make them into disco records, I just wanna make them sound crazier. I submitted beatsfor Rihanna's record: I really like the way that she's crazy. She sounds like a robot, like automatically autotuned. This year I did stuff with Shakira and I've done more pop records. I'm one of the only artists who's lucky enough to be able to go between all those different places. I just wanna fuck shit up. As long as I can make money DJing I can do whatever I want. I've been really lucky – this year I worked with Robyn, I went to Sweden and did some tracks for her record.

...inevitably, his work with MIA.
If I hadn't worked with her, and didn't have her as my ex-girlfriend, she'd be an artist I'd be dying to work with. Is there any bad blood there? Yeah, there's lots of bad blood: we just fucking drink it up like Tru Blood and make music still. Bess Kenway

Field Day happens Fri 1 Jan in The Domain.

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