Diplo at XS Nightclub

Artist Profile

About Diplo

Thomas Wesley Pentz — known professionally as Diplo — was born on November 10, 1978, in Tupelo, Mississippi, though he spent the formative years of his musical development in Miami, where the city's characteristic Miami bass culture — propulsive low-end-heavy production built for car stereos and sweaty clubs — gave him his first framework for understanding how music functions as a physical, social experience rather than a purely aesthetic one. His alias derives from Diplodocus, a species of sauropod dinosaur, reflecting a childhood fascination with prehistoric life that he carried into his stage name with the same straightforwardness that would later characterize his genre-defiant production approach: he took what he liked and named it what it was. He began DJing in the Florida college circuit, starting at the University of Central Florida in 1997 and working at the campus radio station WPRK at Rollins College, developing the programming instincts that would sustain him through the genre transitions of the following two decades. He transferred to Temple University in Philadelphia and finished his undergraduate degree in film studies there in 2003. Philadelphia's affordable real estate and dense creative community during the early 2000s provided the infrastructure for his next phase: in 2003 he co-founded Hollertronix with DJ Low Budget, a monthly party series that launched in the basements of Ukrainian community centers and unconventional venues across the city. The Hollertronix nights became a fixture of Philadelphia's underground music scene, attracting attendees who would go on to shape American music media and criticism, and generating enough attention that Diplo's name spread well beyond the city limits through word-of-mouth and mixtape distribution. He built The Mausoleum, a combined video studio, recording studio, record label office, gallery, and event space in Philadelphia that served as the physical infrastructure for what followed. He founded Mad Decent Records in 2006, establishing an independent label that would become one of the defining platforms for global bass music, moombahton, and the internationalist strain of electronic music production that Diplo spent the following years developing. The meeting that catalyzed his international career happened in 2004 when, while DJing at a London club, he encountered British rapper M.I.A., who approached him about a collaboration. The music they created together contributed to her debut album Arular (2005) and culminated in Paper Planes, her 2007 single that was sampled by Jay-Z and Kanye West for Swagga Like Us and became one of the defining tracks of the late 2000s. Beyond Major Lazer — the electronic dancehall project he co-created that became a platform for genre-bridging production spanning dancehall, afrobeats, and dance-pop — he has built collaborative identities with Skrillex as Jack U, with Labrinth and Sia as LSD, and with Mark Ronson as Silk City. His production credits encompass Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Drake, BTS, Britney Spears, Madonna, Bad Bunny, and dozens of others across pop, hip-hop, and Latin music. His Las Vegas residency at XS Nightclub and Encore Beach Club at Wynn Las Vegas features club-focused high-energy sets distinct from his festival work. His 2026 Wynn Nightlife calendar spans May through October across XS Nightclub, Encore Beach Club, and Encore Beach Club at Night dates.