Diplo Goes Country With ‘So Long’, Featuring Cam [LISTEN]

Well-known DJ Diplo is in the 2019 Stagecoach Festival lineup, and ahead of the big event, he's released a new country collaboration. "So Long" features singer-songwriter Cam; readers can press play above to listen.

For "So Long," Diplo is using the name Thomas Wesley (the DJ's birth name is Thomas Wesley Pentz). Backed by a pulsing beat and a distorted fiddle, Cam sings to a potential love interest: "I know you're fine doing life on your own / But that doesn't mean you should spent it alone / 'Cause boy, you've been flying solo for so long / But I think it's time to give your heart, your heart what it wants."

While Diplo is billing Thomas Wesley as his new country project, there's not much beyond that fiddle and some of the lyric video's imagery to signal that "So Long" is meant to be a country song. However, the DJ says that more collaborations with country artists are in the works; according to Variety, his collaborators include Thomas Rhett, Zac Brown and Sam Hunt in addition to Cam.

"I’m ... just trying to do something totally off-the-cuff and different. They’re kinda like country, but I’m adding some of my flavor to make it unusual," Diplo explains. "It’s actually a hard thing to get some of these guys to take a chance, because country’s such an insular community, but I’m trying to do something a little bit different with the songwriting, just trying to experiment, y’know?"

In addition to making music solo, Diplo -- a native of Tupelo, Miss. -- has worked collaboratively as the EDM trio Major Lazer, the DJ duo Jack Ü and the pop group LSD. In 2019, he, Mark Ronson and Dua Lipa won the Best Dance Recording Grammy for their song "Electricity."

At Stagecoach, Diplo will headline the festival's first-ever official late-night after-party on Sunday (April 28). The event runs April 26-28 in Indio, Calif.

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