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Rihanna sons Diplo, told him his music sounds like ‘reggae at an airport’
During an exclusive feature with GQ covering his tour of Africa, Diplo revealed the one artist that he can’t ever work with.
Of course it is Queen Rihanna.
Not only can Diplo and his collective Major Lazer not get Rihanna, she kind of burned the shit out of him when he tried.
Diplo told GQ about trying to play songs for Rihanna.
“But if not, I don’t really care. I played her ‘Lean On.’ She was like, I don’t do house music. I face-palmed so hard on that one. Another time I had a session with her, and Future was also invited. The Weeknd was there. Metro Boomin was there before anybody knew who he was. I was so contact high. Future played her, like, 700 songs. It was four in the morning. Finally, I was like, Yo, G, I’m leaving unless you let me play her a song. So I played her a song. And she was like, This sounds like a reggae song at an airport. [laughs] I was like, I’m gonna go kill myself.”
First off, that’s a great story.
Secondly, holy shit that’s the best summary of Diplo’s “reggae” of all-time. If she weren’t a pop mega-star busy saving the world, Rihanna could be a music critic at Pitchfork.
As for Diplo, he’s busy touring Africa where he’ll do shows in Nairobi, Lagos, Kampala, Addis Ababa, and Johannesburg.
Diplo’s work with emerging music scenes is cool, until it becomes a little culture vulture-y. If it’s not authentic, Rihanna will know and tell you that shit sounds like it belongs in a damn airport.