Los Angeles, CA · dancehall · electronic

Major Lazer

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Diplo's dancehall-electronic party machine — pure festival serotonin, 'Lean On' and a dozen more global smashes in one set.

Major Lazer began in 2008 as a project between Diplo and British producer Switch, built around a fictional Jamaican commando character of the same name. The debut album, Guns Don't Kill People... Lazers Do, was recorded at Tuff Gong Studios in Jamaica and released in 2009. Switch left after that record, and Walshy Fire and Jillionaire joined for the years that followed.

The music took dancehall as its starting point and pushed it through electronic production, moombahton and pop, drawing on a long list of guest vocalists across each release. Subsequent albums, Free the Universe in 2013, Peace Is the Mission in 2015 and Music Is the Weapon in 2020, kept that same open-door approach to collaboration.

The group is best known for 'Lean On,' made with DJ Snake and MØ, which became one of the most-streamed tracks of its era, along with 'Get Free,' 'Light It Up' and 'Cold Water.'

Between albums, EPs such as Apocalypse Soon, featuring Pharrell Williams and Sean Paul, and Know No Better, with Camila Cabello, Quavo, Travis Scott and J Balvin, extended the catalogue. Major Lazer also produced Reincarnated, Snoop Dogg's reggae album under the Snoop Lion persona, and was ranked fifth on Billboard's 2018 Dance 100.

The lineup has kept shifting: Jillionaire left in 2019 and was replaced by Ape Drums, and British-Jamaican artist America Foster joined in 2025. Live, it functions as a high-tempo DJ-and-hype-man show.

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