Guatemala City, Guatemala · tech house · house

Gordo

3 festivals played ↓

Formerly Carnage, rebuilt as a tech-house producer with a Latin percussion streak and a much better record collection — a genuine second act.

Diamanté Blackmon was born in Washington, D.C., in 1991 to Nicaraguan parents and spent much of his childhood in Guatemala, raised by his mother and aunt, before returning to the United States at age ten. He grew up in Maryland, attending Walkersville High School, and started playing small clubs in nearby Frederick at sixteen, well before he adopted the Carnage name.

As Carnage, Blackmon built a career on festival mainstages and collaborations with EDM and trap producers including Borgore, KSHMR, Timmy Trumpet and Headhunterz. His 2014 track "The Underground," made with Alvaro, reached number four on Beatport's chart. His 2015 debut album, Papi Gordo, topped Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart and carried guest verses from Migos, Lil Uzi Vert, Rick Ross and others; its single "I Like Tuh" went gold.

A second album, Battered Bruised & Bloody, followed in 2018, pushing further into trap and drawing weak reviews. Blackmon also released the collaborative EP Young Martha with Young Thug in 2017. By then he had largely stopped performing as a recording artist himself, shifting his attention toward production work for others.

He debuted the Gordo alias at Club Space in Miami, releasing the single "KTM" in February 2021 and "Taraka" that September, the latter also lending its name to a touring event series built around underground artists and surprise guests. He formally retired the Carnage name in May 2022, after fourteen years, to mark the move from trap and bass music into house and techno.

Musically, Gordo works in tech house and minimal grooves, frequently built on Latin percussion and looped vocal snippets, a clear break from his earlier trap productions. He has produced for other artists, including Drake, since making the switch. The change also meant leaving big festival stages behind for club nights and open-air dance events.

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