Major Lazer's Diplo and Switch Reunite with M.I.A. on 'Where's The Daddy?'

Original Major Lazer duo Diplo and Switch reunite with M.I.A. for the first time in over ten years on “Where’s The Daddy?,” a track from the Major Lazer vault that is available now.

 Of the track, Diplo says: “Major Lazer’s origin story is a jumbled-up mess. It reads more like a villain story. I knew about Switch from being the weirdest and hardest DJ in London, and he was interested in my local scene in Philly—Spank Rock, Amanda Blank, Santigold, Plastic Little. M.I.A. got mixed up in the project when me and Dave were summoned by XL Recordings to make beats for her. I failed miserably, but I made a mixtape, Piracy Funds Terrorism, and Dave had a few bangers around town. We made too many beats for her, so we decided to go record them in Jamaica because the artists there are extremely talented, and the productions were cutting edge. We made this Major Lazer album down there and started a little movement that ended up with a few billion streams. It’s cool to put out ‘Where’s The Daddy?’ now because M.I.A. was the third daddy of Major Lazer.”

Switch adds: “I’d just landed in London from Kingston, back from my first trip to Jamaica. It was the craziest musical pilgrimage I’d ever had. In the taxi ride home, my head turned when I heard M.I.A. performing ‘Galang.’ I called a friend and found out that the track had been released on XL Recordings. As the taxi drove through Ladbroke Grove, we made a short stop at XL, and with the meter still running I burned a CD of the beats I’d just made in Jamaica and left it at the front desk for M.I.A. A few weeks later, I got a call about a track that M.I.A. was working on with Diplo, who I’d been following from the Hollertronix stuff he was doing. After working on their track, I went with M.I.A. to meet Diplo where he was spinning that night. Turned out Wes and I both had a twinkle for dancehall and Jamaica, so we decided to try our luck, and our luck turned into Major Lazer. This year, 15 years later, we found a locked safe of all the hard drives from that period. It was like opening a musical treasure trove. There’s a lot of unreleased gems we found in there, ‘Where’s The Daddy?’ being one, well chuffed.”

“Where’s The Daddy?” is one of several previously unreleased tracks taken from the forthcoming 15th anniversary edition digital reissue of Major Lazer’s seminal 2009 debut album, Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do, slated for release November 15. It follows “Nobody Move” with Vybz Kartel, which found Diplo reuniting with the Jamaican dancehall legend featured on “Pon De Floor”—the iconic breakout single from Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do that served as the framework for Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls)”—and arrived alongside an animated video directed by Ferry Gouw.

Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do (15th Anniversary Edition) also features the unreleased “Pon de Streets” and the rerelease of “Zumbie” with Andy Milonakis. Additionally, the original version of the album will be repressed on vinyl for the first time in 15 years to celebrate the anniversary, due out November 15—pre-order the 2xLP vinyl reissue HERE.  

If Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do sounded like nothing else when it was released in 2009, the last 15 years have revealed just how groundbreaking it is. On a sonic level, the then-duo of Diplo and British producer Switch were some of the first to bring dance and pop sounds from the Caribbean into the American mainstream and combine them in surprising and seamless ways with other global influences. Visually, the album’s infamous album art by Ferry Gouw, the bizarre and colorful Eric Wareheim-directed videos and a jaw-dropping live show rounded out the colorful Major Lazer universe. On the whole, Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do signaled a major overhaul of how pop music could sound.

Major Lazer has gone through many evolutions since emerging in 2009. Initially a studio-oriented project, the outfit developed into a live juggernaut with the addition of New York-based dancehall MC Skerrit Bwoy in 2010, blowing minds on tour and at festivals across the U.S. and Europe. Following Switch and Skerrit Bwoy’s departure in 2011, the duo was replaced by Jillionaire and Walshy Fire, transforming Major Lazer into the festival-headlining, global-pop kings behind hits like the Diamond-certified “Lean On”—one of the most successful songs of all time—and “Light It Up.” Major Lazer reached its current lineup of Diplo, Walshy Fire and Ape Drums in 2019, most recently issuing 2023’s Piano Republik, a collaborative album with South African amapiano stalwarts Major League Djz. Major Lazer also released 2013’s Free The Universe, 2015’s Peace Is The Mission and 2020’s Music Is The Weapon.

Photo credit: donslens

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