There's been a lot of debate in the media of late over drugs and EDM culture in the United States following the overdose deaths of two punters at New York's Electric Zoo earlier this month, which led to the festival's cancellation on Day 3. Chatting to Rolling Stone over the weekend at the Boston Calling Festival, where 21 drug-related arrests were made, Diplo and Jillionaire of Major Lazer weighed in their opinions on the matter.
"It's going to sound weird, but we need to teach kids how to do drugs, the same way we teach them about drinking responsibly and having safe sex," Jillionaire suggested. "If you're going to go to a festival, drink water for six days before you get there; don't drink no alcohol. If you're going to do a pill and a half, don't do four more and then pass out, overheat, and die of cardiac arrest. Instead of acting like drugs don't exist, acknowledge that drugs will be at a festival and address them."
Agreeing with his pal, Diplo then added: "We're such a conservative culture that we'd rather not talk about the things kids want to do, even though they're going to do them anyway. We'd rather ignore it to solve the problem. In Florida, where I'm from, drugs have been a part of club culture since day one. Kids have always been going to raves in the woods. 20 years ago, Orlando was one of the first places to have rave culture, and we learned how to do drugs. It's going to happen; you can't control it. Persecuting a festival is not going to help it because kids are going to do them regardless. Hell, they'll do them in their houses. That's why crystal meth is a problem in America. Drugs are a big problem in America, because we have money to spend and a culture that wants to be turnt up all the time."
Diplo also took aim at the media, claiming music writers and critics are out of touch, "old" and have nothing better to write about.
"I had a lot of friends who died from Oxycontin and heroin overdoses. No one wrote about those kids. When 6,000 kids party for three days and two kids die, it's a story because the writers don't write about electronic music, as it's flat and boring all the time."