FEATURE: Major Lazer x Mad Decent Interview

  • story Matthew Schnipper
  • photo Gabriele Stabile

Diplo owns a gun. He says so while peppering a clerk with questions about a very Rambo-esque semi-automatic at a gun store in Philadelphia. His gun, used for hunting with his family, is in Florida, not here at either his apartment or the enormous old mausoleum he uses as the headquarters for his record label, Mad Decent. Despite the two touchpads, Diplo is rarely in Philadelphia and is in the process of moving out of the very cheap apartment, which is currently crammed with records, sneakers, old magazines and years’ worth of other crap. Being there is more like a weird sideshow for him than a trip home. Some guy with a ponytail wanders shirtless out of the back room. He doesn’t introduce himself and Diplo says he doesn’t live there.
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FADER TV: Inside the Mad Decent Mausoleum With Popo

On the very busy day that we conducted the massive eight-person Q+A that is our cover story on Mad Decent and Major Lazer, the boys in Popo were nice enough to give us a tour around their adopted home, Diplo’s clubhouse, studio space and crash pad, the Mad Decent mausoleum. It’s an enormous North Philadelphia space that used to house a sculptor’s studio and now houses some parties, an empty Red Bull fridge, a huge projection system for playing Wii and generally a lot of guys. Watch through to the end for our favorite part, a brief cameo by Diplo’s manager Kevin Kusatsu.

Freeload: The FADER Issue 62 Podcast

We and you and everyone we know has been trumpeting the Summer Of Love 2009, and it was our mantra as we put together FADER Issue 62. We scoured the universe for the summeriest, most barbecuey music this year and came up with an issue that, if you scratch-and-sniff it, smells vaguely coconutty like Hawaiian Tropic (not really). As such, this issue’s podcast, presented by Bacardi B-LIVE, is about as clear a definition of what we think you should be listening to in the coming months as we could possibly make. It’s got songs from every artist in the issue from cover stars Phoenix, Major Lazer, Maluca, DJ Sega and Popo; featured power-bros Young Dro, Dum Dum Girls, Wavves, Crocodiles, Family Time Records fam, Gen Fers Omega, D-Lo and Sleepy D, Esser, CFCF, and like a trizillion more people! Download it below and listen while reading the issue, scorching hot like the sun on newsstands right now. And come back to TheFADER.com in two weeks for the free issue PDF that you can save on your computer until the robots take over.

Download the FADER 62 mix as an mp3 (right click, save as)
Sign up for our podcasts on iTunes
Subscribe via your favorite RSS reader
Check the tracklist after jump.

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FADER TV: Popo (Live at the FADER Issue 62 Release Party)

We’re still nursing a Vitamin Water hangover from a much-too-fun FADER Issue 62 rooftop release party 36 hours ago, when the rainclouds of NY parted momentarily to welcome the Mad Decent crew. Popo, as always, looked cool and sounded cooler and generally owned shit before and after the party by hanging around the silver 4-Runner they drove down from Philly. Popo is so cool that we want them to leave their hometown of Philly and make them our BFFs. They should probably just move down to Brooklyn and do this kind of stuff with us all the time, but for now, we will survive by hitting the replay button on this video of them performing some hits from their album Po Po Go.

Live: FADER 62 Issue Release Party

Word on the street is that we totally killed it with our Summer Music Issue, so to celebrate we jammed as many people as we could onto a huge roof in Bushwick and set up a bar with Budweiser, Southern Comfort and Vitamin Water. We’re into simple pleasures, so that alone would have been enough, but Popo, Maluca and an iteration of Major Lazer featuring Diplo, Switch and BK’s very own 77Klash all tore up the stage. The city lights were blinking in the distance and we were surrounded by nearly all of our friends. After the jump check a small selection of images from the epic night.

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FADER TV: Major Lazer Live at the F62 Party

Last night about 400 of our closest and overarchingly attractive friends rolled up on a secret Bushwick rooftop for one of the most epic FADER issue release parties in recent history, celebrating FADER #62, starring Major Lazer and the new Mad Decent vanguard. We rented some palm trees, made a lifesize cardboard cutout of Rodney Dangerfield holding a boombox and handed out buckets of Budweiser and Southern Comfort. After amazing performances by NY princesa Maluca and Philly destruction punks Popo, Major Lazer commandeered the stage. Everybody at the party flocked to them like moths to flame: Their album dropped yesterday, and after their NY performance on Saturday, it seems like the entire city just developed an Empire State-sized boner for them. So when they performed party faves “Pon De Floor” and “Hold the Line,” with bespoke-neon hypeman 77Klash, extra focused hand drummer Prince Terrence, and two of the most energetic young mummies we have ever seen, the crowd became the definition of berzerker. It was kind of cold outside, but it felt like the perfect spark for hopefully the best summer ever.

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Freeload: A Bunch of Songs From Urban Outfitters

Fans of good music and haters of vowels, come together and partake in Urban Outfitters latest URBN LSTN thing, in which they give away a crapload of free songs from a bunch of artists, some of whom have been given full endorsement by us in the pages of FADER Magazine and right here on this webternet site. Artists such as Grizzly Bear, Crystal Antlers, Apostle of Hustle, Passion Pit, The Big Pink, Amazing Baby, Jeremy Jay, Major Lazer, Popo, Lemonade, Nite Jewel, Phoenix and many more whose songs we’ve already posted here! It’s almost like they’re stealing from us! It’s almost like we should get compensated in some way! It’s almost like they should send over lifetime gift cards so we can stop wearing dirty t-shirts and duct tape shoes!

Download: URBN LSTN #5

FADER TV: The Absurd Yet Awesome Outfits of Popo and Maluca

Popo and Maluca aka the Mad Decent New Vanguard have ridiculous style. We highly endorse it—and their music, too!—but after their sets at The Levi’s®/FADER Fort, we were compelled to ask them about their bright colors, floaty fabrics and weird pants. Also we were kind of drunk but we think they were too?

RCRD LBL Freeload: Popo, “Comin’ to Get You” + “Pay the Price”

Lately we’ve been listening to a whole bunch of bands that sound like they record all their music on a Talkboy in an alley behind a strip club, but so far only Popo have captured the elusive what-would-happen-if-we-made-music-from-the-bottom-of-a-trash-can sound that is pretty much designed to exist on limited edition 7-inches. RCRD LBL has a couple unreleased songs, both of which could very well be the soundtrack to yelling at our parents, skateboarding on a banana board, or every failed high school band dream we ever had. Also, make sure to check the video of them playing on Saturday at The Levi’s®/FADER Fort, especially our new favorite song, “Turn Into Assholes.”

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