Diplo - Europa EP

Diplo
Europa EP
2019
Spotify

Diplo has seemingly tried it all. He's headlining Coachella then playing a DJ set at the Country Festival Stagecoach. He's on TV, He's on Twitter, The man is damn near everywhere actually winning a Grammy last week for the Silk City track "Electricity". With Diplo there is always this push and pull between cool and annoying. You see some of his DJ sets from years ago and they are magical. All techno, all vinyl it seemed like there wasn't anything Diplo wasn't willing to try in service of the music. Now as his focused has become more and more pop centric that sense of wild experimentation has all but left him. He still does new things, like this new EP Europa, but they are far removed from the DJ prodigy of old. This new record taking sounds from Africa and Europe feels like the decision someone who considers themselves a citizen of the world would make. He's been to these places so He thinks He has the chops to make and elaborate on their music. The results are mixed, but for the most part inoffensive. Each track feels heavy with weighty bass, but also incredibly generic. This album feels like someone who is out of ideas and just trying anything to see if it sticks. Nothing about this record feels like it's Diplo, instead it just feels like some random world music with an electronic bend. Props to Diplo for shifting out of the EDM bubble before it burst, but this ain't the way to move forward, or, maybe it is.

The thing about this album is it latches on to some of the Latin sounds that are incredibly popular right now. "Bai Coupe" featuring Bausa feels like all the other Dancehall and Reggaeton inspired tracks that have been coming out since "Despacito" broke so many records. On one hand it's cool that Diplo is getting into other non pop genre's, but you can't help but feel like the motivation is odd. The songs also all sound almost exactly the same. You keep waiting for some kind of change up, but every track follows almost the exact same pattern. Besides "Boom Boom Bye" they are all almost the exact same length. The sens you get is that Diplo really didn't care all that much about this, nor does it seem like He cares about much anymore. It really takes an interesting project or something new for him to perk up and take notice. It feels like He just sleepwalks now and because Diplo's name is on it people have to take notice. I like Diplo and I like a lot of the music He has made, but for every "Get it Right" there are far more records like this.

4.0 out of 10