Diplo may himself be nominated for three Grammy Awards this year (Producer of the Year, Best Dance/Electronic Album and Best Dance Recording), but the "Where Are U Now" DJ isn't being quiet about his opinions on the award show. In an interview with The New York Times, Diplo spoke on his nominated works as well as some of the major snubs in EDM, including "Lean On" by his group Major Lazer, featuring DJ Snake and MO.
"['Lean On'] doesn't exist in any genre... we couldn't be nominated for reggae, because we're just too weird. It doesn't fit anywhere else, so we kind of cursed ourselves with a massive song," Diplo told The New York Times about one of this year's biggest snubs, which garnered 600 million plays on Spotify and was declared the most streamed song of all time.
Diplo also spoke about his collaboration with Skrillex and Justin Bieber "Where Are U Now," which has often been seen as a most unlikely pairing. When asked how he felt about the song being nominated the producer said, "We're only nominated in dance categories and I think we're definitely the best stuff in that world. We were trying to expand ourselves out of dance into something for the future."
On Skrillex he said, "Me and Skrillex are just two nerdy guys who just work on our computers and write songs. But we're actually at the same level as the pop stars now, because we leveled the playing field by just having great songs and putting them out as our own. There's no way we could've done that 10 years ago or even five."
Nominated song "Where R U Now" was a song of the summer and a perfect example of very different genres bridging to create something that would really hit. It blended pop, EDM and hip-hop very seamlessly and was one of the bigger tracks off of Diplo and Skrillex's recent Jack U album. The song was created when the two EDM producers sat down with Bieber in a club during New York Fashion Week and decided to make a hit.
