Florida

"I made Florida between a small apartment in Philadelphia and my mother's house in Florida. I was working late nights and taking a bus through the city every night, smoking weed, putting on headphones and just making things I never heard before and could just imagine. Making this record created an entirely new world for me. Now that I think back it's a very strange beginning and it's crazy it's been 10 years since its first release, but really, this record represents my first 23 years of life - what I had inside of me and where I came from so I'm excited to revisit it." - Diplo

Some time back in the distant year 2000, the Big Dada office received a package from a young man calling himself Wesley Pentz. Wesley was an American currently living in Japan for reasons unclear and, in an English language music magazine over there, he had read that Big Dada were looking for "avant garde dancehall." This he had. Along with the scribbled note was a CDR with FORMDIPLO written in looping, marker-penned hand. The CDR contained a series of musical sketches which would eventually form the basis of the debut Diplo album, "Florida."

In some ways, 'Florida' represents Diplo's most personal work, with less thought for the dancefloor than for atmosphere (not least because it was mainly mixed on headphones, with no money for monitors or smart studios). You can almost smell the swamps, but you can also feel a young man travelling on a bus through a city and trying to work out how to make his way in life. As such, to understand Wes Pentz, where he comes from and hence where he's going, you have to go all the way back home-back to 'Florida.'

So here we have it… the original album in full plus full disc of new mixes and lost treasures from the 2004 sessions.