American DJ & Music Producer; Founder of Mad Decent
Travel Location
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Book Diplo For
Corporate Appearances, Speaking Engagements, Autograph Signings, Endorsements, VIP Meet & Greets, Store Grand Openings
Book Diplo for a Speaking Engagement
Businesses, Non-profit organizations, event planners and companies across the country have worked closely with our booking agents to hire Diplo for a speaking engagements, guest appearances, product endorsements and corporate events. Many of those same clients have continued to turn to our speakers bureau as we can easily align Diplo’s availability with their upcoming seminar, gala, annual conference, corporate function, and grand opening. Our close relationship with Diplo’s booking agent and management team further enables us to provide inquiring clients with Diplo’s speaking fee and appearance cost.
If your goal is to hire Diplo to be your next keynote speaker or to be the next brand ambassador our celebrity speakers bureau can assist. If Diplo’s booking fee is outside your companies budget or your unable to align with his appearance availability, our booking agents can provide you a list of talent that aligns with your event theme, budget and event date.
One thing of which Diplo cannot be accused is being afraid to experiment with new music. 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. His attention-grabbing projects "Hollertronix," with partner DJ Low Budget, and the "Piracy Funds Terrorism, Vol. 1 mixtape," with elusive British-Sri Lankan MC M.I.A., made a heavy impact on the alternative electro-pop scene, amassing him rave reviews from music critics and indie kids alike, including Spin magazine, which named him DJ of the Year in 2005.
Diplo was born Thomas Wesley Pentz in Tupelo, MS. Although he lived in a few different cities in the South, he mainly grew up in South Florida. He spent his youth in his father's bait shop, fixated on manatees, alligators, and dinosaurs with hopes of becoming a paleontologist. However, he wound up pursuing an education in film studies, starting at a couple Florida colleges but then finishing up his undergraduate degree in Philadelphia at Temple University in 2003. Before his move to Philadelphia, Pentz had moved temporarily to Japan to escape daily life in America. From Japan, 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.
To support himself, during and after graduating from Temple, Pentz took on a few different jobs in Philadelphia: social worker, after-school mentor, movie theater employee, and gig-by-gig DJ. He was barely able to pay the rent, and the frustration was stunting his musical development (although he does credit one of his musical epiphanies to the after-school students who exposed him to crunk and Baltimore club music). Thus, Diplo and like-minded DJ Low Budget pooled their resources to start up their own club nights in Philadelphia, which they branded Hollertronix. It simply began as a fun night of genre-warping dance music, but it blossomed into an underground subculture drawing out crowds from all over the East Coast. Under the Hollertronix moniker, Diplo and Budget released the highly praised "Never Scared" mixtape; it 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 downtempo piece focusing on melody and instrumentals that was a departure from the melee of mashed-up vocals and beats. His unrelenting work ethic produced a considerable number of acclaimed mix CDs and 12" records; however, none of them accumulated more interest and Internet chatter than the 2004 "Piracy Funds Terrorism, Vol. 1 mixtape" that introduced M.I.A. outside of U.K. borders. Developing a yearning to produce more worldly music, he also began to throw his energy behind the Brazilian youth- and street-based music known as funk carioca (also referred to as baile funk), a derivation of Miami bass music. So, 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. In 2009, the label signed a distribution deal with Fontana and Downtown Records. Their first collaborative release was by Major Lazer, a fictional Jamaican bounty hunter that was the brainchild of Diplo and DJ Switch. Major Lazer's debut album, "Guns Don't Kill People... Lazers Do," appeared in 2009, the same year as the Diplo remix collection "Decent Work for Decent Pay: Selected Works, Vol. 1." In 2010, Mad Decent began their "Blow Your Head" compilation series with the unmixed collection "Blow Your Head: Diplo Presents Dubstep."
Mad Decent is also the label behind Baauer, the DJ whose track "Harlem Shake" was the contagious YouTube song-and-dance craze early this year. Diplo shares the secrets of the Shake: "We sold nearly 1 million copies, but spent under $5,000 on marketing. How? We gave the song away to begin; we didn't fight pirating; and when a spark happened, we just added fuel to the fire. So many labels are going out of business. We bring it back to where it counts: releasing exciting music."
Read More About Diplo
Let our team of booking agents help create a memorable experience with hiring Diplo for your store grand opening, golf outing, trade show booth or corporate outing.
NOPACTalent acts as a Celebrity Speakers Bureau and Athlete Booking agency for corporate functions, appearances, private events and speaking engagements. NOPACTalent does not claim or represent itself as Diplo’s speakers bureau, agent, manager or management company for Diplo or any celebrity on this website. NOPACTalent represents organizations seeking to hire motivational speakers, athletes, celebrities and entertainers for private corporate events, celebrity endorsements, personal appearances, and speaking engagements.
