Diplo Name Drops Nashville Hip-Hop OGs in Infinite Legroom Interview

Seems like our lucky week, as far as being in the spotlight alongside national hip-hop. First, the long-rumored

surfaced — go check that out before it gets pulled again. About the same time, Infinite Legroom (the travel blog founded by mind-blowing DJ A-Trak, and at least one travel blog we can read without our brains glazing over) published an interview with Diplo, another of the planet's best-known and baddest-ass beatmakers. In it, Diplo name-drops some Nashville OGs as early influences.

Most fans think of Diplo, born Wesley Pentz, as a Florida native: His 2004 debut album, F10rida, pays homage to the Sunshine State home of his late teens and early twenties, as well as the birthplace of Miami Bass, which he credits with a major impact on his own work as well as the rest of contemporary hip-hop. However, Pentz spent some equally formative early teenage years in Nashville, getting in touch with the local scene via WRVU's DJ Egon (later of the influential West Coast label Stones Throw) and kicking it at a local hip-hop hangout.

"Egon always had guys like Count Bass D on his show and one of those guys had a hip-hop shop that sold paint cans and graffiti markers and stuff," says Pentz, presumably referring to Southern Fried Funk, a short-lived Church Street shop run by master graffiti artist Brian Dees Bryan Deese and pal Joseph Horowitz. "When I started break-dancing the first record that would come on during the dance circles was 'It’s Just Begun' by Jimmy Castor Bunch. The beat was sick but the lyrics to that song were so dope. I love hip-hop because I love that song. It was a revolutionary song to me."

HT to Partier/Bullshitter/Scene contributor Sean L. Maloney. Check out the full interview.