Ariana Grande and Gwen Stefani To Appear On Major Lazer’s New Album
Diplo has been on a new music rampage, constantly in the studio working on the upcoming Jack U CD and the long awaited Major Lazer album. He opened up at the Grammy’s this past Sunday to clear up some rumors surrounding his latest projects.
Diplo confirmed the Major Lazer album is due out this April 2015 with collaborations from Ariana Grande, Elli Goulding, Travis Scott, Pusha-T, and Gwen Stefani. The three tracks he produced on the Madonna album are due out this March and as the icing on the cake, Jack U‘s debut album will see the light of day this month.
It’s a wild amount of output even by Diplo’s standards, and it makes sense why he needed the Grammy’s red carpet to set the record straight. Between his own solo work, Jack U with Skrillex, and running Major Lazer alongside Walshy Fire and Jillionaire, the guy has basically been juggling three separate careers’ worth of studio time at once, and 2015 was shaping up to be the year all three collided at once. It’s the kind of workload that’s basically become Diplo’s calling card — the man never seems to stop moving between projects, genres, and collaborators, and this stretch was arguably the busiest run of his career up to that point.
The Major Lazer record would go on to be titled “Peace Is the Mission,” and while Diplo’s Grammy weekend announcement named Gwen Stefani among the collaborators, she ultimately wasn’t part of the tracklist when the album dropped that June. Ariana Grande’s feature did make the cut, though — she landed on “All My Love,” a remix that also brought in Lorde alongside Machel Montano and Skinny Fabulous, giving the album one of its bigger pop crossover moments. Elsewhere on the record, Diplo delivered on the dancehall and Caribbean-leaning sound Major Lazer built its name on, with features from Wild Belle, Chronixx, DJ Snake and MØ, and a Travis Scott, 2 Chainz, Pusha T and Mad Cobra posse cut for good measure.
The album’s release also slipped from Diplo’s originally announced April date to June 1st, which tracks with how these star-studded collab albums tend to go; locking in guest verses from artists at Ariana Grande’s level takes time, and timelines shift more often than not once a dozen different schedules have to line up.
Diplo has a lot in store for us just in time for Miami’s Winter Music Conference. We can’t wait to see what new tricks he will be bringing to the table.
