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Rio representer

It was 2002 when the then unknown DJ Diplo first started throwing his Hollertronix parties in Philadelphia. Nothing special about that really, except that he’s more than your average DJ: like any cultural curator — say, art-school instigators Andy Warhol and Tony Wilson — he created a new æsthetic in his discipline that corresponded with the advent of mash-ups. He’s become a tastemaker, a hunter of new sounds and unique combinations. In the process, he’s helped forge a universalist approach to consuming music. Everything is fair game, from Lil’ Jon to the Smiths, Missy Elliott to the Strokes, Kelly Clarkson to Daddy Yankee. Hollertronix represented a celebration of liking it all. It all came together for Diplo when he was asked to produce a track for Arular (XL/Beggars), the 2005 debut by the genre-bending London-based Sri Lankan siren M.I.A. (He also produced her breakthrough mixtape, Piracy Funds Terrorism, Volume 1.)

“It seems a lot of DJs today are taking pride in their scenes, and how far they can go and have a great party,” he writes in an e-mail regarding the impact of Hollertronix. “There wasn’t a thinking like this one year ago. But I can definitely see all these new young kids producing and working harder at DJing and moving music [forward] faster.”

Diplo isn’t exactly standing in place himself. He’s always had a talent for picking up on the newest trends. Last summer, he could be found at the Knitting Factory spinning opening sets for grime up-and-comer Kano. And this past February, he unveiled his new label, Mad Decent (a partnership with Phoenix contributor Chris Nelson), by releasing a 12-inch by the unknown Brazilian baile funk group Bonde do Role.

Bonde, as Diplo affectionately refers to them, fall in the tradition of invigorating Brazilian dance music that’s been reared in the filthy favela slums of Rio de Janeiro over the past decade. But until Diplo brought it over and threw it into the pan-cultural pastiche Arular, it was all but unknown outside South America. Its fan base in the US remains minuscule — something he hopes to change with Bonde do Role’s more accessible, more Americanized take on the form. “People say, yeah, I like baile funk, but only really nerdy kids on the Internet can name one artist!” he points out. “I thought, let’s have a fun artist, let’s produce a group proper for the world — just as an experiment.”