The electronic project of DJ Diplo, which conquered the radio charts with the track “Lean On”, is sent to musical research modern culture three countries of the planet. The guide in each country will be a local musician who has rightfully earned the love and respect of fans.
Tuborg Open will unite talented people around the world, opening up opportunities for bold musical collaborations. The first impetus will be the release of the official Tuborg Open beat, created by the project’s ambassadors - the Major Lazer trio consisting of Diplo, Jillionaire and Walshy Fire. This beat is the basis of all future compositions and creative experiments implemented within the project. Major Lazer are already working in music studio, to release a series of 3 tracks in June 2017, recorded in collaboration with local artists. We will name one of them now.
Scriptonite is a musician from Kazakhstan, who loudly announced himself with the release of his debut album “House with Normal Phenomena.” One of the main artists of Russian-language hip-hop is the owner of many awards and honorary titles, including the GQ magazine award in the “Discovery of the Year” category in 2016. Scriptonite became the only artist representing Russia in the Tuborg Open. The names of the remaining project participants are kept secret until May 2017.
As part of the campaign, a limited edition version of Tuborg bottles featuring Major Lazer will be released in 2017. The culmination of the project will be the band’s final concert in September, which, thanks to Tuborg, will also be available to Russian fans.
Tuborg is a beer brand that respects its long-standing connections with the music community around the world. For decades, Tuborg has supported the largest music festivals planets - including Roskilde, the legendary Glastonbury, as well as its own Greenfest. Thanks to the brand's initiatives, many first-tier groups visited Asian countries for the first time and of Eastern Europe. Fans still remember the performances of Muse and Foo Fighters in Russia, Depeche Mode in Croatia and Tame Impala in Asia. Similar experience of dialogue different cultures inspired Major Lazer to participate in the Tuborg Open project and compose the official Tuborg beat.
“Developing a unique beat that would fit perfectly into three completely different tracks was a really fun creative process for us,” says DJ and producer Walshy Fire. - The project allows us to expand the range of our own ideas about people and amazing places that we would not have met without this platform. And we, in turn, can give our new friends our own knowledge and experience.”
“This is a completely new experience for us,” continues his colleague Jillionaire. - The main thing here is the joy of communication and discovery of something new, the constant exchange of ideas, which ultimately will allow us to create something more together. This is a real cultural interpenetration.”
Diplo explains the concept of Tuborg Open: “The beat will be the unifying element for all musicians, and that’s what inspires me the most. Project participants will be able to create anything based on it, it is for any interpretation. At the same time, the beat sounds like part of an original Major Lazer track, with its unmistakable sound. We are very interested to hear what happens as a result.”
Scriptonite agrees with his collaboration colleague: “We do great job. I am interested in music in general, its most diverse directions. Every time I experiment, I don’t move away from myself, I still continue to revolve around my sound.”
Diplo also hopes that the Tuborg Open will be a great source of inspiration: “It is known that great things happen when a person is open to something new. Our dream is to inspire music fans to explore other cultures and explore new boundaries of what they can do."
“When creating the Tuborg Open campaign and the Tuborg beat, we wanted to harness the unique power of music that can transcend any geographic barrier. - says Ashwin George, global marketing manager at Tuborg. - And Major Lazer, famous for their musical collaborations, became an ideal partner in this sense. Their passion for bringing together different cultures, genres and artists is in tune with what Tuborg has been doing for many decades.”
You can get acquainted with the new global platform and follow the project news on the website.
Could anyone have imagined something like this just a couple of years ago? And now Diplo and Skripi are writing a song in the same studio
Today it became known that as part of a special project Tuborg Open, the famous electronic band Major Lazer will record songs with representatives of three countries - China, Russia and India. Especially for this, they produced a beat that will form the basis of all three collaborations.
Russia in the project will be represented by Scriptonite, which appeared in shortly before the announcement, and the release of the song is scheduled for June of this year. And here’s what the participants themselves say about this (read a short interview with Major Lazer on the Afisha.Daily website):
Scriptonite: “I am interested in music in general, its most diverse directions. Every time I experiment, I don’t move away from myself, I still continue to revolve around my sound.”
Diplo: “The beat will be the unifying element for all musicians, and that’s what inspires me the most. Project participants will be able to create anything based on it, it is for any interpretation. At the same time, the beat sounds like part of an original Major Lazer track, with its unmistakable sound. We are very interested to hear what happens as a result.”
Jillionaire: I listened to a lot of Russian rap - it sounds very aggressive, but I like it that way. You have people making some pretty crazy industrial, trap sounds.
The organizers announced that the electronic group Major Lazer, authors of the biggest hits and headliners of the biggest festivals, will take part in it.
Major Lazer members Diplo, Jillionaire and Walshy Fire produced for TBRG Open an instrumental track - the so-called “Tuborg Beat” - which will become the basis for their collaborations with three local stars representing China, India and Russia.
The organizers were the first to reveal the name Russian artist- it was the rapper Scryptonite, one of the most prominent representatives of the new domestic rap scene, who made a name for himself with the breakthrough album “House with Normal Phenomena,” which was released in 2015 on the Gazgolder label. Last week, a short video featuring Scryptonite appeared on Diplo's Instagram Stories, raising many questions about the origins of the post.
Afisha Daily talked with the members of Major Lazer about the secrets of successful collaboration and how aware they are of modern Russian music.
- Do you know anything about Russian music?
Jillionaire: Yes. We were listening to something. I listened to a lot of Russian rap - it sounds very aggressive, but I like it that way. You have people making some pretty crazy industrial, trap sounds.
Diplo: Yes, that sounds very aggressive. When I listened to him, I immediately remembered my first trip to Moscow - then I, too, was cold and scared. This is how this music sounds. But then I came to you again, this time to St. Petersburg, it was summer - and this is a completely different matter.
Major Lazer often uses Jamaican, Caribbean, African, South American music - and thanks to you, it seeps into the mainstream, into pop music. What do we need to do so that Russian music also penetrates the global market?
Walshy Fire: Your musicians need to keep doing what they are doing. But they also need to look for ways to collaborate with European artists, with American artists. Let's say in the last 5-7 years a lot has been done to build bridges between the Western pop scene and the same Caribbean sound, and you can see for yourself how successful result it gave.
And that's what we continue to do, collaborating with African artists, with Scandinavian artists and so on and so forth. In Russia, obviously you are dealing with a language barrier. But there are also Russian-language markets, and they are also not the smallest. There are Russian communities in everyone big city- here in Los Angeles. Or look at the French - they somehow achieve global success. Be it their rappers Booba, LaCrim or electronic musician DJ Snake. The boundaries for music have become more porous and malleable than ever before. Therefore, you should not be afraid to set big goals for yourself.
You have a lot of collaborations with other musicians. Can you tell in advance whether the collaboration will be successful?
Diplo: For a successful collaboration there are only two conditions: you need to be open to new ideas, and you really need to work hard. Sometimes you spend a lot of effort - and without much result. But sometimes something happens completely spontaneously - and two minutes later you leave the studio with a hit.
Walshy Fire: Chemistry is very important; If there is no chemistry between you, then even with an extremely talented collaborator it will be difficult to work.
-Who was the most difficult to deal with?
Jillionaire: Yes, in fact, those collaborations took place where it was not difficult. If it gets too difficult, the best thing to do is to break up and move on.
Diplo: Sometimes we tried to get big stars - really superstars. And we didn’t succeed because of the schedule, timing, and other circumstances. Sometimes the politics of labels and studios become an obstacle. And some really great work never came out.
- After so many years of work, after so many successful singles, have you already figured out what makes a song a hit?
Jillionaire: Only you do, audience. We can assume things, but ultimately, bro, it's your choice.
Diplo: Frankly, it's a pretty dead end trying to program a hit. Throughout this time, I was engaged in music that I sincerely liked. I'm not sure things would have turned out this way if I had instead tried to chase trends and copy the sounds from the charts.
Is it possible in today's world, where music is globalizing and unifying, where any successful discovery is immediately copied, to still maintain its uniqueness?
Diplo: I play music all over the world and I get asked everywhere whether globalization is bad for music. I can't say that music is becoming impersonal. If you speak English with a Russian accent, no amount of globalization will change that. IN South Africa I worked with a man who calls himself a house musician - it didn't sound like house music at all, in my understanding. It was something South African.
If a guy in Russia makes rap, he needs some kind of recognizable feature of his own. One of my favorite reggaeton artists lives in Russia, a guy named White Gangster. He does very cool music, but you say to yourself: “Hey, something is wrong, this is not reggaeton in its pure form, there is something Russian mixed in here.” No matter how global the world becomes, you still have something of the culture that raised you - well, there’s no need to hide it.
We also spoke with Scryptonite to learn about the ins and outs of working with Major Lazer.
- What did you expect from the meeting with Major Lazer?
I didn't expect anything. In such situations, there is no point in planning anything in advance.
- What do you focus on in music?
I follow everything that happens with music, but I try to remain myself; make music that is popular but original. But where is the line, how not to fall off this path, how not to chase trends - this is big question. I myself observe a lot of people in whose actions I don’t find logic - well, when the musician was doing better before he began to focus on some kind of “commercial” sound.
Major Lazer are known for successfully turning into elements of pop music some interesting sounds and raw ideas from niche scenes - from Jamaican dancehall, from Trinidadian soca and so on. What Russian, Kazakh, or our music could enter trends in the same way?
There are many beautiful ethnic instruments: balalaika, Kazakh dombra, kobyz - a two-string cello, roughly speaking. And it’s up to the producers how they adapt it. Either few people want to take risks, or they simply don’t know how. I'd like to try, but not right now.
- Do you feel pressure because your collaborators are such stars?
It's a little complicated, yes. They don't press on purpose, but you will still feel it.
