28 Apr
The first episode of Diplo's serial music documentary

As described on Mad Decent, “Diplo’s been working on a new documentary series for Current called No One is Safe, where he sort of Anthony Bourdains on the music scenes he’s deep into and explores their origins/history/current state, etc. This is the pilot, on New Orleans Bounce music, and it turned out to be really interesting. It’s not easy to encapsulate in a short amount of time a music scene as arcane and insular as New Orleans Bounce for a mass audience, and he did a good job of putting it in context while exploring the party lairs of current bounce artists like Sissy Nobby and Big Freedia. Also, there is a clip where he is skateboarding while talking on a cell phone.” As my friend Jesse Serwer so eloquently describes, there’s always a whiff of cultural tourism with everything that Diplo does, and this could fall under that description. But what separates him from a Chris Blackwellian type of exploitation is the fact that Diplo, aka Wesley Pentz, seems to have a distinct desire to promote and expose this music, not just financially exploit it. From baile funk to soca to soweto to Miami Bass to Nawlins Bounce, Diplo has a sincere respect for and desire to promote this pan-global ghetto bass music that he brings to clubs and dancefloors worldwide. And he puts his money where his mic is — such as his Heaps Decent charity that provides instruments and music programs to many of these impoverished areas. Keep it coming Wes…

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