I recently met Diplo in Berlin, while he was promoting his “Major Lazer” album for German media. German club culture magazine “Groove” features a full page on our meeting in their “Nimm Zwei” (”Take Two”) series. Here´s the translation:

Not far from the ambassador´s quarter in Berlin, two music ambassadors meet to exchange news and music. Names like Schlachthof Bronx or Justin Martin start to fly as Wesley Pentz, a.k.a. Diplo, 29, meets his colleague Daniel Haaksman, 40, boss of Man Recordings, to talk about the current state of Germany´s music scene. Satisfied, both conclude that the children of Kraftwerk open up their ears – and sample banks – to phenomenons such as Kuduro, Cumbia to Funk (Rio) to Funky (London). Haaksman lives in Berlin, Diplo is in town to talk about “Guns Dont´t Kill People, Lazers Do”, which he co-produced together with Switch.

Interview by Eric Mandel

Daniel, four years ago you invited Diplo to play at Berlin´s 103 club, and only a dozen people showed up. How would that be today?

DIPLO: Our small scene doesnt get much press. We are pretty much invisible, coz loads of things are based on file sharing. Daniel is here in Berlin, in England there´s Mumdance or Jammer, Crookers in Italy, Al-Haca in austria. We all do pretty much the same, an eclectic sound, we´ll never fit into one box. So we stay in contact, share music and support each other. The dub step guys don´t like Rusko and the old techno heads hate Crookers, because their tracks don´t peak after five minutes but after 45 seconds, haha. We are all pretty much fans of each other.

HAAKSMAN And this has reached a critical mass now. 2006 you could count the people involved in this scene on one hand. Now you have Crookers topping the pop charts worldwide, M.I.A. broke with “Paper Planes” and a new generation of club kids was raised on a sound that gives you an alternative to the ubiquious sound of house and techno played all night long. Those kids have an eclectic music taste, and this includes everything from rock, cumbia, reggaeton, ghettotec, whatever. Many of the elements that are relevant in techno – sound engineering, technology, long blends in mixing – are not relevant in this music. The idea of an spiritual expierence or states of trance on the dancefloor are not important for our audience, it´s all about pure energy. Styles like kuduro or baile funk inspired people like us with new ideas. Thus we became ambassadors which bring people from Brasil or Angola over here and put those people into contexts both in production and labels.

DIPLO It´s necessary, otherwise it´s just world music for older intellectuals. But it´s both ways: DJ Znobia from Angola recently sampled Switch. DJ Sandrinho samples Baltimore beats for his baile funk parties in Rio.

HAAAKSMAN Earlier, there was only very little musical exchange between Angola and BRasil. Now you have the anthem of Flamengo as a Kuduro remix from Angola. People can jump the artificial barriers today that the old media structures, the major labels or media company used to rule. Today, people can directly exchange ideas and music, and it´s all thanks to the internet.

DIPLO It´s kind of weird for me to see that Berlin is only getting it now, as Berlin is considered to be Electro-City. When I grew up in Miami I had this 2 Live Crew record, there was this track called “We Want Some Pussy (Live In Berlin)”, and it sounded as if they were playing in front of 20.000 people. I thought they were the biggest thing in Germany. I mean you guys had Kraftwerk, they invented the damn beat!

HAAKSMAN Yes, but here it went completely different ways. When Bambaataa used “Trans Europe Express” he created the electronic version of afro-american funk. In the U.S. this led to both Detroit techno and Miami bass. Electronic dance music in Germany wasnt very much influenced by “Planet Rock”, only when later, in it´s bastard child versions of Detroit techno or Chicago house. In Germany in contrary, e.g. DAF, was pretty straight and totally “white”. This preference has remained until today in large parts of the German dance music scene. There´s a few islands across Germany which follow afro-american music innovations, but the majority is completely self-centered. All the afro-american music innovations of recent years – bmore, chicago juke, etc. – werent registred over here. The same is for bubbling from Holland, which comes from a very vibrant black community.
DIPLO It´s great to mix with hard stuff, but by now it has become a no-word because for many years it has become really trendy. It´s a mix of Caribbean reggae and Dutch house, right in the middle.

You two have an ear for regional phenomenons. What is on your radar these days?

HAAKSMAN There´s hundreds of local dance music styles that are still to discovered. Tecno brega from Manaus for example. I´m currently into UK funky. Many of the UK funky guys come from Grime and they were fed of the clicheed strings and MCs. It´s sort of the UK answer to the breakbeat thunderstorm which poured over UK in recent years in forms of Kuduro, Soca, Baile Funk, Juke and Bmore.

DIPLO They want money, hehe! To be honest, I like UK funky, some of the instrumentals are great, like K.I.G.´s “Head, Shoulders, Kneez & Toez” has a good flow. But the majority of tracks sound to me like a cheap version of Bugz In The Attic. And when there´s “African” vocals, like (singing) “I play my conga”, then it sounds like the stuff my mother listens to when she visits a world music club night. At the same time it´s a mixed scene, with black and white kids, and that´s cool with me.

Read the original interview in German in Groove Magazine #119. Out now.

Daniel Best and Mr.Wix adjusting the bass

Diplo heating up

Yeahhh

Well done, Wes

ARTIST: DEIZE TIGRONA, DIPLO
TITLE: BANDIDA/ME CHINGA
CAT NR: MAN 021
FORMAT: 7“ SINGLE
VINYL RELEASE: JANUARY 25th, 2008

Deize Tigrona, the undisputed queen on the mike on the Rio Baile Funk scene, is back with a vengeance. After her collaborations with Edu K on the infamous „Sex-O-Matic“, a coop with London´s The Bug on the dancehallesque „Miniature Do Lulu“, „Bandida“ sees Deize Tigrona temporarly allign with the man they call Diplo.

DIPLO

„Bandida“ (=bandit) is the kick ass anthem against all male adulterers – and a warning shot to all women sleeping with married men. Even if you dont understand the full content of Deize Tigrona´s lyrics, the power of her voice soon makes clear that Deize is serious as cancer about all those women trying to snatch her husband away. Diplo, the world class beat maker from Philadelphia, M.I.A. co-producer and cream of the crop remixer, provides the musical background for Deize´s anger attack and sho´nuff, you cant get more punk rock than „Bandida“. While the average dance move for baile funk is usually the polonaise, for „Bandida“ the only option is: Pogo dancing.

DEIZE TIGRONA

The flipside of the 7“ single, produced by Deize´s husband DJ Rafael, is not quiet as punk rock as „Bandida“ but still rocking the bells. With a heavy riff and a bouncing Tamborzao, this one is more for the hips.

Tracklist
A: BANDIDA
B: ME CHINGA

Vinyl release only. Limited edition of 100 in red vinyl. Available exclusively through the Man Recording shop.

Rio de Janeiro´s TiM Festival is an annual live concert extravaganza sponsored by Brazilian-Italian telecom giant TIM. This year´s headliners included Björk and Arctic Monkeys, plus shows by Spankrock, Girl Talk, Lindstrom, Toktok, Juliette & The Licks, Killers the main attraction on the festival´s last night however was the FUNK MUNDIAL stage.

The line up was: MC Gringo, Daniel Haaksman, DJ Sandrinho, Sinden, Diplo, DJ Marlboro. A night in which the international ambassadors of funk would meet up with Rio´s hottest funk talents. Months before the event it was decided not to include any MC from Rio as political dynamics within the MC community wouldve boasted the night´s program. It´s still scarce that MCs from the funk community get the chance to participate in international festival stages in Brazil so to keep heat low, MCs were excluded, except for MC Gringo, the German-Brazilian MC, who was considered neutral for the event.

Sound rehearsals started in the afternoon – MC Gringo being the only artist performing with a live instrument, he needed some adjustment with his co MC Gus to warm up.

After rehearsals Sinden went off with MC Gringo to a footie match at Maracana stadium. Daniel Haaksman chilled at the pool of Sheraton Rio – to doze off after a hard party night in São Paulo. Diplo was busy putting his final hands on his “Favela On Blast” movie and a hungover from Björks party the night before.

While on his way up to his room, Haaksman crashed into Diplo. Sinden followed shortly after, together they hung out in the lobby, laer, a small bus took the bunch from Sheraton to the festival.

The TIM venue was rammed with people, three stages attracted tons of folks hungry for partying – the night before it was raining cats and dogs, Saturday night was a perfect and warm early Rio summer night. Soon the FUNK MUNDIAL tent filled up. Backstage all artists came together for a quick talk about running order and playing length. Sinden and Haaksman met TIM programmer Hermano Vianna for a brief chat

MC Gringo started the night in the giant tent and soon proofed his skills as a A list performer. Backed by DJ Comrade from NY and his Co MC Gus, Gringo filled the tent in a second and soon got the audience moving their hips in funk carioca stylee.

Up next was Haaksman who added extra bass to the stage and got the crowd moving fast. Hermano Vianna mentioned “It was the best set to make sex too”. Some dancers agreed, others like Deize Tigrona, Sany Pitbull, Diplo and Sinden decided to do other dance routines.

After Haaksman, DJ Sandrinho took over the decks. And with his party proof MPC/Pioneer CD-J wizzardry soon brought the tent to the boil.

Finally our boy Graeme Sinden burned the tent with a breathtaking mix of niche, brandnew tracks by himself as well as remixes from the Dubsided crew.

Last but not least, Diplo brought the party to the peak with his irresistible mix of Bmore joints, baile mashups and party bombs. Rio just couldnt do nothing else but dance – even the bouncers joined in.

The night was rounded up with DJ Marlboro playing tracks from his label – sorry, no photo available!

ARTIST: EDU K

TITLE:  “POPOZUDA ROCK N’ ROLL”
FORMAT: 12″ VINYL + DIGITAL DOWNLOAD
CAT.NR.: MAN 04
RELEASE: NOVEMBER 11 2005

With Edu K’s “Popozuda Rock n’ Roll” Man Recordings proudly presents a classic Rio baile funk anthem in a 2005 remix shape. Diplo from Hollertronix, Philadelphia, U.S.A., has worked the Brazilian burner into a highly personal interpretation of Rio’s favela bass sound. With a catchy snythie hook, percussive beats and the great voice of Edu K, Diplo had created a storming remix that no booty can resist.

Edu K – Photo by Sebastian Mayer

Remix Nr. 2 is by DJ Sandrinho from Rio de Janeiro who is one of the most famous original Rio baile funk DJs and producers. Sandrinho is the main DJ of MC legend Mr. Catra and has produced various bases for the biggest voice in baile funk. His remix is a genuine baile funk interpretation. With it’s clipping bassdrums, percussive grooves and a firework of free floating samples, the DJ Sandrinho mix creates the authentic sound of Rio.

DJ Sandrinho

Remix Nr. 3 comes from Edu K himself. The allround genius from the Southern Brasilian town of Porto Alegre, who has been in the famous Brazilian punk band De Falla for many years, is today one of Brazils most prolific musicians and producer. In his mix, he created a reggaeton mix of his heavy metal-funk anthem. Undoubtedly, this is the world’s first official baile funk-reggaeton clash released on wax. A magnificent remix, which will set any dancefloor on fire!

On the B side, there’s the original, the instrumental and the acappella – perfect material for every bedroom producer and DJ to create his own favela booty beats interpretations.

Three excellent remixes, the orginal version, plus tools for the individual deck and laptop use – Edu K’s “Popozuda Rock n’ Roll” EP is surely one hot release. It´s a must for every music lover, DJ and booty fan. Now VAI POPOZUDAS!