Renaissance Man

Pentz, amused at being addressed as “Mr Lazer” by a telephone conference administrator, is genuinely amped about hitting Oz. “This will be our third time as Major Lazer, but it's our first time with our new record,” he points out. “This is our biggest record – there's so many big songs on it. I'm excited to play the new songs for all of the fans out there to see what happens. It's going to be crazy, 'cause we have a whole new show – it'll be our biggest crew yet, we're bringing ten people over.” As Major Lazer, Pentz, who resides in Los Angeles with a young son, co-produced Snoop's Reincarnated – and speculation is that they might perform together. “I would love to,” he says. “I've gotta give him a text and see what he wants to do.”

For Snoop, Reincarnated served as a spiritual quest. The fabled gangsta rapper decided to cut a reggae record – and sing. He also, staggeringly, disavowed guns. Pentz, who previously helmed Snoop's That Tree (with Kid Cudi), became a confidant. Snoop was still mourning the loss of his cousin, hip hop singer Nate Dogg, to a stroke – and ruminating on his own mortality. “He met Paul McCartney, he met Obama, he met all these guys, and they were like, 'Yo, we're big fans, we love what you do'. He was like, 'Do they even know what I really do?'.” Snoop is “proud” of his back catalogue but, entering his forties, began “thinking about his legacy”. “He wanted to put out a record that had a more positive message – [it] is great for an artist to be able to do that and have that kinda motivation.” The challenge for Pentz was to work on “a full reggae album” since Major Lazer specialises in dancehall – and “party music”.

Pentz is reputedly an occasionally moody interviewee. It's not surprising with his schedule (and famed partying) that he should find media duties an imposition. He can be picky, too. The 'countercultural' Pentz declined to talk to DJ Mag when he cracked 2013's Top 100 poll. But today he's ebullient, keen to talk up BDO. In fact, Pentz' inaugural Australian tour was with the festival in 2006 – he DJed for M.I.A., his then kindred spirit and lover. “I remember that Iggy & The Stooges headlined and that was awesome – I was a huge fan,” he says. Though he and M.I.A. later had a bitter falling-out, exchanging public missives, Pentz is now gracious. “You guys loved M.I.A., man – she was just like the new voice that really represented what you guys were feeling in Australia at the time.”

Pentz has always led a nomadic lifestyle, being born in Tupelo, Mississippi and raised modestly in Florida. He subsequently studied film at college in Philadelphia. It was in Philly that, as 'Diplo' (short for Diplodocus), Pentz started DJing seriously in the Hollertronix combo – while doing social work. He presented an album as early as 2004 on Ninja Tune's Big Dada offshoot. Florida was redolent of DJ Shadow, with Tricky vocalist Martina Topley-Bird on board. Pentz, a “post-DJ”, emerged as an important champion of regional music, exposing Brazil's baile funk. In London he connected with an unknown M.I.A., shaping her debut, Arular. Its success culminated in his producing everyone from Santigold to Beyoncé to Usher. And he developed a label, Mad Decent, which enjoyed its biggest commercial triumph last year with Baauer's US number one Harlem Shake. Pentz produced M.I.A's breakthrough second album, Kala, (home to Paper Planes) with UK DJ/producer Dave 'Switch' Taylor and the pair formed the eccentric, Gorillaz-like Major Lazer. “Me and Switch just worked really well together.” In 2009 they released Guns Don't Kill People… Lazers Do, partly recorded in Jamaica. Beyoncé's Run The World (Girls) is based on their Pon De Floor.

Pentz' musical colleagues commend his studio skills – and his commitment to networking. He's inherently genial. Even in his days sparring with M.I.A., he seemed the more reluctant to lash out. Sure, he's been dissed by Azealia Banks (for supporting Baauer's request that she not circulate a remix) but, then, so has everyone. This makes his split with Taylor prior to Free… all the more mysterious, Pentz recruiting Jillionaire and Walshy Fire as new cohorts. Reportedly, they had “creative differences”. However, Pentz denies that – and, indeed, Taylor didn't “quit”. They each merely did their own thing. “There were no real differences,” he stresses. Taylor was initially “excited” about Major Lazer but saw it as a one-off. “I really had a vision for this project to be something big,” Pentz says. Taylor wasn't prepared to devote time to it. “I was going hardcore on the touring – he was not really into that.” Ultimately, Taylor, Pentz says, is a studio guy – and in 2011 he was focused on chasing pop projects. “It's just no big deal.” As it happens, the two just crossed paths in Jamaica. Taylor, recording nearby, dropped into Major Lazer's Kingston show. “It was cool to see him – I hadn't seen him since Jamaica a year earlier.” They intend to collaborate again – and on Major Lazer. “We're still huge friends. I'm actually gonna make some stuff now with him on the new record.”

Ironically, Pentz himself is now recognised as a super-producer. While he sprang from an urban dance underground, he's no pop snob. Free… boasts such implausible guests as Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig, Bruno Mars and Shaggy. And, not only has Pentz liaised with Justin Bieber, but he also recently contributed Passenger to Britney Spears' Britney Jean. “I'm just here to make music – that's what I do, I'm good at it. When I work with an artist like, say, even a Britney or [Passenger co-writer] Katy Perry or whatever, I'm working with them as people. I don't care about what their fans are like. I don't like when people have conceptions about what they are, who they are. I just work with people directly. I just deal with human beings. I don't ever judge anybody… If they have some chemistry, that's all I want.” It's about having “fun” – and creative freedom. “I never go in the studio with someone like Justin Bieber because there's a bag of money there.”

Pentz has plenty in the pipeline. “There is a lot of Diplo stuff coming out. I just put an EP [the New Orleans' bounce-oriented Revolution] out in October and there's some more records coming out in the next couple of months. But I've been concentrating on helping a lot of the Mad Decent artists put out records, like Dillon Francis and RiFF RAFF. Then Major Lazer has a huge album I'm gonna do later in the year – we have an EP out in February… Basically, I'm just into creating that new Major Lazer album – it's gonna be big, man, it's gonna be a massive record.” That EP, incidentally, features Pharrell. Meanwhile, Free… has been reissued locally as a tour edition with extra remixes (one from Flume under his What So Not guise).

Pentz has done something no other international DJ has in Australia. In 2007, along with Nina Las Vegas and Andrew Levins, he launched Heaps Decent, which organises music programmes for Indigenous and underprivileged youth. Pentz rarely speaks of Heaps Decent these days (although he has helped set up similar entities in the US and South Africa). There's a reason for that. “To be honest, there is a lot of politics involved with my role in it,” the DJ, sensitive to notions of 'white privilege', sighs, suggesting that it's because he's not Australian. “That was kind of weird to me.” Guiding tracks by young Indigenous musicians for a Heaps Decent CD, Smash A Kangaroo, he didn't question their attraction to (politically-incorrect) gangsta rap, instead purely facilitating. “I still think that a lot of people wanted to keep it like safe and cute and whatever it is.” Pentz worried his association was a liability and so now lets the organisation, which has funding from Sydney's Fuzzy, speak for itself. “But Heaps Decent still runs really well – it's an amazing initiative, I'm very proud of it.”