Major Lazer has recently released an impressive body of work featuring some of Africa's brightest artists, the Afrobeats Mix. Of the unique project, Diplo told Complex, "new African music gets overlooked in America and Europe," and celebrated the incredible collaborations on the project. Features include Burna Boy, Mr. Eazi, Kizz Daniel and Babes Wodumo. In the wake of their recent release, the pioneering group plans to travel to the continent where much of the music that has inspired and shaped their last project was created.
While on tour throughout the African continent, the group will be involved in anti-poaching efforts in collaboration with the Veterans Empowered to Protect African Wildlife (VETPAW). "They're an organization that has veterans that protect animals, because you have to. They're so rare now—I'm talking about animals we love like elephants, lions, rhinos, tigers—it's crazy that they're going to be extinct in the next 10- 20 years, if we don't work to protect them," shared Diplo. "We're very happy to spread any awareness on protecting the wildlife in Africa."
The tour is set to begin on September 29 in Johannesburg with its final show taking place on October 8 in Uganda. It falls at an auspicious time for the group who have reached their 10 year anniversary. Nonetheless, the tour may count as one of the group's last. Diplo revealed that the group is gearing up to release a special, potentially final project which promises listeners "a bunch of stuff you haven' t heard like that we made the last ten years." He went on to share, "Next year marks our last album, so we got a lot of stuff in between now and then."
What are your favorite Major Lazer projects?