American DJ Thomas Wesley Pentz, aka Diplo, needs no introduction. The music producer has delivered many hits, including Lean On, Welcome To The Party, and Midnight Ride. Born in 1978, he moved to India when he was just 20, and it changed his life.
Reports suggest that he purchased a second-hand Enfield motorcycle and explored Gujarat to West Bengal and Uttarakhand to Ladakh. Not only did he collect records from junk shops in New Delhi, but he also listened to people playing tabla and sitar.
Recently, the music producer opened up about how he found rhythm while staying in Rishikesh.
American DJ Diplo Shares His Adventures In India
"Speaking of India, let me tell you a story. DJing is like a journey. When you hear a good set, it should make you happy, make you love...but also should make you wonder...make you curious and teach you things you may not have known before," Diplo began his story.
He shared that a "strange story" behind why he became a DJ. He wanted to make hip hop music, but he realised he was not good at it. "I shoplifted a few drum machines, rudimentary samplers, and Gemini turntables, started to loop samples and make beats," the 47-year-old music composer added.
He started listening to more sources, aka vinyl, at old record shops. "But then, it became vinyl in an old warehouse in West Philadelphia, a flea market in New Jersey, a second-hand store in San Juan, or maybe a back alley junk shop in New Delhi," Diplo further noted.
He realised that all the sources were not just grooves on vinyl, but they were the places where music rhythms came alive a few decades ago. "The attitude of a city in a foreign place, the scenes of the 70s era gone, but the spirit still lingers," the caption of the post further read, describing what India was for him.
American DJ Diplo Found Rhythm In Rishikesh
Continuing with his story, Diplo further shared that after travelling in India for a month, he ended up in Rishikesh "broke and hungry". However, he had a bike and a yoga studio to sleep in.
"This was Rishikesh, 40 years after the Beatles. There had been Western hippies speaking eastern wisdom before them, but who cares? The Beatles had their own ashram here. And since then, a few hundred thousand yogis had come to study at the foothills of the Himalayas," he wrote.
However, Diplo also clarified that he wasn't a yogi. In fact, he was an adventure seeker who was into records and could afford cheap beer. He was a cultural anthropology dropout who wanted to work for National Geographic.
Back in the days, if you asked him about yoga, he could not even touch his toes without bending his knees. Amid the adventures, a friend of his asked him to swim down the cascading Ganga River.
"I said, 'sure'. We parked our bikes and took a taxi up a few miles - we were gonna float down in hiking boots in case we hit rocks, 'just stay on the side,' he said," he shared. Diplo soon realised that the river takes you wherever it wants, and he learnt that the boots drag you down to the bottom.
He left the story on a cliffhanger and promised his fans that he would continue it in part two. But, he shared a video of himself on the banks of the Ganges playing beats on a DJ gear.
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