12 June 2015
Diplo, one part of Major Lazer, has most recently been in the news due to various sexual assault allegations, which he denies and which in one instance has been settled out of court. The video for ‘Lean On’ is someone doing their big shop in the Bollywood aisle of Cultural Appropriation. Singer MØ has since acknowledged this, but Diplo’s 2018 response to the general issue of a white artist being commercially successful by borrowing reggaeton and dancehall was “I don’t … really … fucking care”. So, Diplo may be a bit of a dipshit.
During the latter half of 2015 ‘Lean On’ held the title of most streamed track of all time on Spotify. However, I have the impression there was a lot of this glossy Ibiza-reggaeton (or tropical house, as it’s come to be known) about in 2015, perhaps because a generic version of same always seemed to be playing in a café I frequented at the time. In this particular case the treated post-chorus vocal hook (contributed by DJ Snake) and the dancehall rhythm (borrowed from… see above), combined with the trance-y vibe and MØ’s strong performance, help ‘Lean On’ to its sound-of-the-summer status. Still, I find it never gets past the vibe of sonic wallpaper and café mood-music. I hope those fractions of cents racked up on Spotify were due reward for all that cultural commodification.
