-I'm so happy to be able to talk to you,
and thank you for being here.
I have a lot of questions for you.
Congrats on the self-titled album, by the way.
-Thank you, thank you.
-I know you were just at Coachella with Anitta,
who has been on the show. She's awesome.
What even is that scene remotely like?
I'm not saying I would never go,
but I just don't know if I'd fit in there.
-You would love it. You would love it.
And you know Anitta. I know she was here a couple weeks ago.
-She's amazing. So fun.
-She has, like, more followers than, like, the state of Iowa.
She's one of the most popular -- -She's got so much energy.
-She works harder than anybody else.
And I think when people talk about that weekend in Coachella,
she was the one thing people talked about the most
'cause she brought this Brazilian culture
and did everything there.
Had me out to deejay with her, but it was --
Being on main stage with her was something I'll remember.
It was amazing.
-You're also closing Stagecoach.
-Right, yeah. That's this weekend.
-Which is a huge -- It's a country music special.
-Yeah. -So, how do those crowds differ?
-They're totally different.
I think Stagecoach is a little bit smaller than Coachella.
Coachella is two weekends and there's like 40 levels of VIP.
You have general admission and you have all the way to
the craziest artist passes.
And it's almost like influencer survivor there,
like to figure out where you belong
and how to get into parties.
-Influencer survivor? -Yeah.
It's pretty hard-core, if you know what I'm saying.
-To see who makes it to the next level, yeah.
-It's kind of crazy.
But Stagecoach is a more mellower festival.
It's country. -Do you like doing country?
-I've been loving it. I did a country album about
two years ago called "Thomas Wesley Presents."
And I did a couple songs that were really big.
And the album went gold. And I'm going to do another one,
I think, this year, so --
-They're amazing fans, country music fans.
We love everything here.
-Yeah, Luke Combs is playing Stagecoach.
And I'm playing after him at the Palomino tent,
like a deejay set, kind of mixing country
and house music and dance.
-Do you get nervous when you do these?
-The last time I did Stagecoach,
I spent the afternoon with Guy Fieri.
And I drank an entire bottle of mescal.
And I really like -- [ Laughter ]
-That's how it is hanging out with Guy Fieri, man.
-And I was at the stage and I was like --
I literally looked at the turntables
and I really forgot how they worked.
-Oh, my God. -But something happened.
It was magic and I just kind of got the set together.
We brought Lil Nas X out with Billy Ray Cyrus,
the first time he performed. -That's right.
-The whole crowd was like -- It was like a really amazing moment
'cause country and rap had this crossover aspect
where everything was happening with like hip-hop and country.
And it was like just something magical happened
at that Stagecoach festival, so I hope to repeat it on Sunday.
-And then, you also -- Can you explain Burning Man to me?
This is why you're here, to help grandpa out.
Thank you. [ Laughter ]
-I would love to take you to Burning Man.
It happens the end of August, early September.
And it's just -- it's a festival like none other.
You know, you can't really go there and buy tickets.
You kind of have to participate.
Even as a deejay, I play like 20 different sets there
and just enjoy the time and look at the art.
-You live there, right? -You have to live there.
You have to camp there for the three, four, or five days.
You might, like, run into, like, Seth Rogen
just smoking weed in the middle of the desert.
Just random. It's super random who's there
and you just kind of enjoy the time there.
It's so macro. Everything is happening all the time.
There's parties and art and music and these art cars
and like -- there's whole shower camps and there's whole, like --
-There's robots too, right? -There's robots too.
Yeah, Robot Heart actually is the camp I play at sometimes.
And some of the Robot Heart guys are here today.
So, shout-out, Robot Heart. [ Cheers and applause ]
-Robot Heart. I'm interested in it.
But I know that -- I was talking to you quickly backstage.
And I know you had to do this -- you did the sunrise.
-I did the sunrise at this last burn.
It was kind of the renegade burn
because there wasn't the organization.
You kind of had to just go out there with --
bring your own water and survive in the desert.
So, I happened to randomly be in Reno.
And the Robot Heart team hit me up and said,
"If you want to come out, we can do a sunrise set,"
which is -- I'd say as a deejay, it's the most coveted set.
To do sunrise at Burning Man is like the final boss,
I think, for deejaying 'cause you got to really get into it
and do something really special, really, really be magic.
And you can't just perform your regular set.
You have to really be in tune with the audience
and watch the sun rise and that's your performance.
It's like the sun's creeping over the desert
and people are there, like, enjoying that.
-And you got it because you're Diplo,
and they go, "Oh, this guy's a trusted name. We know this guy."
-No, it doesn't work at all at Burning Man.
It doesn't matter who you are.
It's really about like -- It's literally another level.
You can't have your brand
and what you've done in your career stick out for you.
You have to really be part of this community.
And I think I did my first sunrise set,
and it was just one of my favorite sets of all time.
And I happened to be there randomly.
I just was there for like three hours and flew back to L.A.
and didn't sleep until that night.
-Yeah, but how did you get to do it?
How did you earn your way?
-Well, you know, it's kind of like --
They give you like a whole vision quest.
Like, over couple different Burning Mans,
you have to do things like -- the year before, I had to take
a big cow off the top of the robot heart they had there
and bring it down and --
-A cow climbed onto the top of the robot heart?
-For some reason, the Robot Heart clique,
they stole one of the cows from Oktoberfest
and they tied it to the top of the heart.
And I had to bring it down because it was going to break.
-But why is Diplo in charge of removing the cow?
[ Laughter ]
-They just saw I had a lot of energy in the morning.
I was on a little bit of LSD. I was just ready to climb.
-Okay, now, yeah. Are you sure it was a cow?
-Yeah, I think so. [ Laughter ]
There's some footage of it somewhere.
-What happens -- Do you take gigs like weddings
and birthdays or bar mitzvahs? -Everything.
I mean, I'll take Stagecoach, Burning Man, bar mitzvahs.
I'm down for whatever. -Yeah.
And just because you like deejaying
and you know how to do it?
-I love to deejay. -You do?
-I've been doing it, you know, 20 years.
I just love to, you know, pick records and play records
for people and just bring music to people.
-You started with records, right? Like, selling records.
Or digging through crates and then selling them?
-Back in Philadelphia. Yeah. -Philly?
Did you ever sell to Quest?
-You know, a couple times, we met up,
and I'm not sure how it went,
but we might have traded records.
But, I mean, I remember being shoulder to shoulder with him
and, like, having a fight for space at record conventions
'cause he was like an animal out there.
He was like -- It was like 20 years ago.
-Yeah, how many albums do you have now, Quest?
-Eh, close to 200...thousand.
[ Laughter ]
-That's a lot. That's a lot. -He has 200,000 --
Are you still in that same thing where it just goes out
and you have a ladder? -Yeah, yeah.
I have a sliding library. -It's almost like a library.
-This guy's on the level now.
-Feels like a "Harry Potter" library with a ladder
that just moves automatically.
You climb up and grab a record.
-It's just an endless library with just records, like,
the whole four feet up.
-Talk to me about this, self-titled.
"Diplo," the name of the record.
Are you excited about this?
-I love it.
I'm going to play a song for you guys tonight with Miguel.
-I love that you brought Miguel. We love that.
Just quickly, I wanted to mention.
I know last night -- You do -- Follow him on socials
if you want to follow someone very interesting and fun, Diplo.
You do things that I would never do but in a great way.
But exciting.
For instance, yesterday was a pop-up show you did in Brooklyn.
-Right, right. -And you just go, "Yeah, hey,
everybody, I'm going to perform here, bang."
And everyone showed up. And then the cops shut it down.
-The cops shut it down before we even played one record.
It was 4,000 kids in the park.
And I forgot how posh Brooklyn is now.
Like, the cops come, like, right away.
-Yeah, they go, "Yeah, we checked your --"
Also you're on Instagram, so the cops are like,
"Okay, he's gonna be in Brooklyn."
So, I mean, you kind of gave it away a little bit.
-We had the kids out then.
It was a guy who took over like
a little street party and he got arrested.
They took his equipment.
This deejay's name is like Subway Deejay.
So I had to go and pay his --
whatever his bail was to get him out.
-You paid his bail to get him out?
-Yeah. Saw the guy. He was getting arrested
right in front of me on the street.
And we were right in front of Brooklyn Bowl
and we said, "Let's just move the party here."
So we asked the owners and they let us in.
-Brooklyn Bowl is the jam, dude.
-It was a big party. -See, Brooklyn's still got it.
Brooklyn's still got it. Diplo, I love you.
Thanks for being here, buddy, and thanks for performing.
Diplo, everybody! Check out his new album, "Diplo,"
which is out right now.
He's performing with Miguel later in show.
More "Tonight Show" after the break, everybody. Come on back.