Gordo is shining luminously with his brand-new album ‘DIAMANTE.’
A labor of love, and one that took 20,000 hours to piece together, the project features an all-star cast of heavy hitters such as Drake, Maluma, T-Pain, and Leon Bridges.
Sonically, the critically acclaimed set fuses a myriad of genres all while remaining cohesive.
That Grape Juice sat down with Gordo during his recent visit to London.
Waxing candidly, the DJ dished on ‘DIAMANTE,’ working with Drake, Beyonce‘s dalliance with Dance music on ‘Renaissance,’ and wanting to bring more R&B into House.
Join us below for a riveting exclusive.
That Grape Juice: What makes ‘DIAMANTE’ your dream project, a term you’ve been vocal in billing it as?
Gordo: The tracklist, like everyone on the album, is just too fire.
That Grape Juice: I echo your sentiment. It’s almost like an Avengers-like list of features. You’ve got Drake, you’ve got Maluma, you’ve got so many other incredible features on there. How did you manage to piece all of those pieces of the puzzle together?
Gordo: I am friends with all of them. I’m cool with everyone on my album, so I didn’t have to pay for features for anyone featured. I think that’s what makes the album so special. Nothing was forced or someone A&R or stuff. I A&Red my entire project, I did everything myself.
That Grape Juice: One of the things I really like about the project is how you blend so many different genres, and there’s still an air of cohesion. With this album, what would you say was your goal sonically?
Gordo: It’s something that you could listen to while you watch the sunset, or you smoke to, and just chill. It’s for those who appreciate good music. It wasn’t specifically created for clubs, or for radio. It was just created so that you could listen to it and appreciate it. On some: “Wow. This is just high-end music”
That Grape Juice: I know we’re talking about this project, skewing going back a little bit, who would you say are some of your influences?
Gordo: Obviously, you know, Drake, Kanye [West], a lot of artists I really listen to in Africa. Black Coffee. But also WhoMadeWho. WhoMadeWho is a big one for me actually. WhoMadeWho will blow your mind with their rhythms and, it comes from three white guys from Copenhagen, but, it has soul. It has rhythm and makes you wanna dance. It’s really good music that is easy to listen to, but without the drums, it’s not like there’s a difference. It’s funny because, when people talk about House music and they talk about types of House music, people don’t understand how many types of sub-genres there are in it unless you’re really in the culture. And, you know, it’s funny because in Dance music, the majority of the DJs there are White. It will blow your mind because you’re going to hear so much melody in Techno. You can tell when a Black producer is making this stuff because then there might be a little bit too much swing to something that’s very smooth.
Yeah, a lot of these artists were a big part for me because the music is just so good, and it’s just so good to hear sonically. I think it’s taken me a long time to get to that point where I could be making music that is just sonically pleasing.
That’s why ‘Sideways’ and ‘Healing’ are so special. Even ‘Honestly, Nevermind’ doesn’t reflect that as much as my album does because I wasn’t fully going into that space. I was going Sideways. The extended version is like a seven-minute song. It’s like there’s so many layers of that, that’s where I get a lot of my stuff from that world.
That Grape Juice: I really appreciate the layered nature of that answer.
One of the things I’m really enjoying is how confident you are with this project, and you should be. It plays like such an amazing listen. I’ve read an interview in which you said you ‘don’t think you can top this record.’
Gordo: Yeah. I don’t.
That Grape Juice: Why is that?
Gordo: Because I don’t even think Drake would give me another 2 songs on my next album.
That Grape Juice: He will. ‘Sideways’ is amazing.
Gordo: It’s like, you know, to have him on the album, and have Feid, who’s, like, the biggest Reggaeton artist in the world, and I have Maluma, Nicki Nicole, but also like Larry June, &ME, Rampa.. I checked off all the boxes, but all those boxes won’t be here moving forward because these boxes are so culturally relevant now. Mexican Corrido blew up (on scale) in the last couple of years, and I don’t know where that will be in the next couple of years. Right now, UK Garage is popular again in the UK. But was it popular like that four years ago or three years ago or five years ago? It wasn’t. You don’t know when these moments are going to happen. Right now, I capitalize on what is currently important to me. I travel to South America a lot; recently, Mexican music became super big because all the young kids are basically now singing about the cartels and stuff. It’s cool to the kids now because they’re not hearing 40, 50-year-old guys making the regional music they used to. Now, it’s become so high streaming that the stuff is streaming more than Reggaeton music, which is not like a known thing, you know.
I was talking to somebody yesterday and I told them that, the perfect candidate for my album is a person who understands Pop culture, Urban culture, and who is Spanish. Because then there’s a little part of the album that is Hispanic. And if you don’t speak Spanish or you don’t know what’s going on in Spanish, you don’t realize how big of a deal those songs are on the album. Having, of course, Fuerza Regida on my album, they’re massive. But one wouldn’t know if not immersed in the sub-genre of it.
[So I say that to say] I hope it’s one of those records where, like, 5 years from now they’re like, “you can’t top ‘DIAMANTE’.”
[The huge support] says a lot. You don’t [easily] really get the top star in the world Drake to support you; there’s a reason why he did. It’s not just because he likes me. It’s the fact that he would put his career and name alongside it. When he is at a very interesting moment right now in his life, for him to put faith in me and to be like, Cool, I’m going to walk with you. Says a lot musically, right?
That Grape Juice: Right.
Gordo: I mean, he is the greatest of our time statistically, and I mean, just music at itself, this
guy’s been f*cking number 1 for fifteen damn years, you know. I grew up listening to the guy.
This album, I’ve been doing this too long to know if it’s good or bad, you know. it’s f*cking good. It’s great. It’s really good.
That Grape Juice: If you could work with any artist that you’ve not worked with before, who would it be and why?
Gordo: I would like to do a song with Kanye. We’ve produced a song together before, for homegirl Teyana Taylor. It kind of just came out and they said they didn’t know that I was a producer on it. I never talked about this, actually. Yeah. It happened to me, but I’m also a guy that, like, if something happens like that, I’m not gonna go on here and say “Kanye is on my beat”. We figured it out after, behind the scenes, and then we reached out to one of the homies that made the music. He was like “Oh my God. We were looking for who made the beat.” I was like “you knew who made the beat.” He responded that there was no title on the file.
But, Kanye is obviously, one of my favorites. A song with Kanye would be great, oh, man! I’d like to do something that’s interesting like House music. It’d be really cool, it would be interesting. I would really love that.
Central Cee actually was supposed to be on ‘Sticky,’ and I think I sent it to him, and he respectfully said: “ I don’t think I can do it justice.” So something else with him.
That Grape Juice: It’s really interesting that you’re so anchored in Hip-Hop too.
Gordo: This is my thing, and I think, this is a thing that I have been saying a lot and I’ve been advocating for, but is a weird subject because people tend to ask, ‘how do you do it? ‘“All of this, all of that, Drum & Bass, all of the darn House music, … it’s very White, … It’s very, very White.” And I think we’re forgetting that it comes from Black people. It comes from the gay community, It comes from America, It comes from Soul. It’s very rare you hear that.
There’s a lot of great Soul in the Dance circus, but they don’t get their shine everywhere they perform, because it’s just not what’s culturally relevant. Right? It’s like having these soulful records, and then it becomes too niche. Right? Because, yeah, we have Amapiano, but Amapiano is very niche, and there is Afro House. Most the biggest Afro House DJs are White.
So it’s like so, you know, there’s something that I can add value to here, you know, and that is, I come from making Rap music. I don’t come from dance music. I fell in love with Dance music, and I added my twist to it. Then you have Beyonce’s album [‘Renaissance’]. She chose to go the Chicago dance heritage route. Beyonce’s album is great for what it is, because she was paying homage to where it actually came from.
It’s great for that. You know? But did her album go the same way that Drake’s ‘Honestly, Nevermind’ did? To me, it didn’t. Because it just wasn’t what you can show a random White kid that lives in Birmingham or in New Orleans or in Kentucky. They won’t get it.
A couple of days ago, I was talking to another Black guy and I told him; “House came from Chicago, Detroit. Black people created Techno”. And he had no idea.
They don’t know that, but that’s just insane because how do you not know that? It’s the biggest thing in the world, and then you go talk to any Black person, and they’re like it’s the “Untz Untz”s music. It’s “White music.”
In reality, I’ll work with our Amapiano and our Afro people. I will find some House music or Techno or something that they would like. Right. But there’s just too much music at this point. There are hundreds and millions of songs coming together all week. Every Friday, there’s something that you’re gonna like, and they’re gonna be mind-blowing. I just try to have my foot in every single door.
That’s why I put T-Pain on my record, that’s why I put Leon Bridges on the album. He’s also a Black guy in mostly a White world. Whereas in his world, you don’t really get many Black soulful singers that are singing on, like, Jazz and indie records.
His whole style is that he’s from the 50s and 60s, but if you go to his Instagram, if you know him, he actually loves listening to hood-ass music and dancing to Texas-ass music. You know? He’s relevant in culture. You know? So, like, doing stuff like that and putting him on a cool record like that is really cool to me. So I just wanna bring Blackness to Dance music and do it tastefully.
Even with rappers. So many wanna do a Dance record. They have to do it with a White act or a White female – otherwise, they’re not going to do it. It’s rare to see a House record from Skepta and the Migos.
That Grape Juice: Interesting.
Gordo: I grew up in Guatemala from 2 to 10 years old, and then I moved back to Maryland. I was born in DC. In Maryland, I lived in Frederick, Maryland, which is 45 minutes up from DC. I moved into the middle of the whitest area you could think of, right next to West Virginia., I’m 25 minutes from the Rocky Ridge Community Center where they had monthly KKK meetings. KKK pamphlets got handed out in middle school as a joke. I’m not like one of those easily triggered people [or rattled by people who vent about me in their space].
We’re like different cultures, different religions, and, I don’t think we’re fairly represented in that world. I didn’t understand that 7 years ago, If you tell me that I’d be DJing in a villa for 10 hours, I would tell you that you’re insane. But now I’m part of it, and I get it now. It’s fire. That’s where it comes in, you know. Where does that come from? That comes from all these renegade parties in Chicago, Detroit, New York, where it’s just all Blacks, Spanish, gays, drag shows, and voguing. And, you know, people don’t understand that. But then, you know, we have, for example, Kaytranada representing that. You know what I’m saying? So it’s like dope. It’s just we just need more people representing certain things in certain places.
I think the more that we build, the more things will change. It’s great that Skepta is playing in the Dance space. Many people in the UK that were never really into it, but now they see guys like Skepta doing it. Their minds are opened.
That Grape Juice: This has been a riveting conversation. So insightful. Looking forward now, what can we expect next from Gordo?
Gordo: More production. Obviously, whatever Drake is gonna be dropping next, hopefully, a part of it.
That Grape Juice: Is that, like, an exclusive or are you kind of hinting?
Gordo: No [Laughs]. I mean, we made so much music, but you don’t know what works, bro. He doesn’t tell me either. Like, I’m like, did you see the ‘100 Gigs’ thing?
That Grape Juice: Yes.
Gordo: So, the Latto song I produced, the Circadian Rhythm song I produced.
That Grape Juice: Oh, wow. We love the Latto song. That’s actually the best of the three.
Gordo: I produced that one. We did that months ago. So, yeah, you never know, but, obviously, we’re always working.
What is next is I want to bring R&B more into House music and, do it right.
It’s funny because if you really break it down, if you look at all the biggest House records, they’re mostly White singers. But then you might have a Jorja Smith for example. You don’t hear enough of that. Imagine Summer Walker on a House record. That would be fire. Like, I wanna see more of that.
That Grape Juice: We are super excited to see how you continue to move the needle forward – with this particular project and beyond.
Gordo: No, thank you.
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Gordo’s ‘DIAMANTE’ Is Out Now
