We cherish Diplo for his music, and we cherish Diplo for his propensity for getting into dudefights on Twitter. We most recently saw the DJ/producer Wesley Pentz getting scrappy at Pitchfork’s “balding music critics” for misreporting the timing of a stabbing in Vegas (it did NOT happen during a Jack Ü set), but now it seems he has a more legitimate artistic concern: whether David Guetta’s new song has shamelessly ripped off “Lean On,” Major Lazer and DJ Snake’s unequivocal song of the summer 2015. And, as it happens, that Vegas stabbing DID in fact happen during a David Guetta set. Coincidence?
Putting aside for now the fact that David Guetta is a major player in roughly 62% of the dudefights that we report on, and that male EDM dudes comprise a good 98% of dudefights in general, here’s the lowdown, via Billboard:
David Guetta, 48-year-old French person and second-highest-paid DJ in the world, has released a teaser of his new song “This One’s for You” featuring Zara Larsson, which will be the theme of the upcoming Euro 2016 men’s soccer championship. A clip is here:
DJ Snake, who coproduced “Lean On” with Diplo, noticed this song’s similarity to his own and, in tweets that have been deleted but are screencapped at Billboard, totally @’ed Guetta like, “you used to be a boss David,” as well as tweeting “fake ‘Lean On’ [no entry emoji]” and “horrible [medical mask emoji].”
After Snake deleted, Diplo came back with some jabs, writing “U right @djsnake I hope the kids realize we always try to innovate and it’s easy for @davidguetta to do whatever Ina quest for relevancy [white emoji thumbs down] [black emoji thumbs down].” He also made the true observation that “you not above us @davidguetta .. U can’t rip us off and go unnoticed .. It’s a small community here ..” at which point I may personally work my way into this dudefight to ask Diplo why he types his ellipses like morse code. But oh, there’s more!
Diplo is 37, which is six in dog years. In 2015, he tied for 11th highest-earning DJ in the world with Deadmau5, also a prolific dudefighter.
Beyond the obviously entertaining dudefight elements of this scenario, I do have to ask: can you hear the similarities between the Guetta snippet and “Lean On” (a song that I know must be one of the decade’s most brilliant because I have heard it around 3 trillion times and I never become tired of it)? Specifically, the chopped-up, high pitched robot voice and replica of the synth sound? Of course, this is just a snippet, so we’ll have to reserve total judgement until the full track is out, but if it slides in with moombahton syncopation and some kind of “Pon de Floor” jack, we’ll all know that Guetta is running some Canal Street-style counterfeit operation here.
Here’s Major Lazer, DJ Snake and Mø doing “Lean On” live at Etam’s weird lingerie runway show in Paris; putting this here because I hate the actual video.
Who do you think will emerge victorious in this very important dudefight among the world’s highest paid electronic music disc jockeys?
Image via Getty
