The Story Of Rihanna’s Major Lazer Burn Prompted Tongue-In-Cheek Responses From Diplo And Metro Boomin

Barbadian singer, songwriter, and actress Rihanna, whose social media antics are well-known for breaking the internet, became the talk of Twitter for a different reason yesterday, as a quote from EDM producer Diplo’s interview with GQ Style went alarmingly viral when he revealed that Rihanna had turned down a collaboration request of his, telling him that his group Major Lazer’s music “sounds like a reggae song at an airport.”

The story, which also involved rapper Future, and trap rap producer Metro Boomin, caught on with fans, who were quick to point out that Rihanna’s claim that she “doesn’t do house music” from the same interview was less than accurate, given her collaborations with house producers Calvin Harris and David Guetta, but also with the involved parties, who chimed in via social media.

First came Metro’s response, via Twitter, in which he said simply, “lol @ “Metro Boomin was there before anyone knew who he was” don’t speak 4 everybody n—-.” He followed up with another series of tweets lamenting the state of hip-hop journalism after his reply was reported on, saying that it was “no harm, no foul. all love. #positivemetro.”

Rihanna also replied, this time via an Instagram post of a screenshot of the headline from one of the many, many sites that reported on the the burn, saying “My bad,” and hashtagging #DutyFree.

Diplo himself may have gotten the last laugh, though, posting a mock album cover photo to his own Twitter, with an extreme closeup of a map (which we’re sure some internet sleuth will eventually determine the origin of) and the title Reggae Music For Airports. He also quoted a tweet from a fan that pointed out “the whole interview is interesting” with the response, “Talking about Africa isn’t important to these blogs they just wanna cover celeb news,” so check out a block quote below where he talks about Africa.

I left feeling that, with all its culture and all its spending power, Africa is about to become the epicenter of a new cultural economy.

Historically, there’s always been so much music in Africa. But there’s never been much of an industry to sell it on a global scale — or even just at home. But now that’s happening. These young Nigerian kids are selling it. They’re selling it in Lagos. They’re flying around Africa performing it. And because of the diaspora, they’re traveling to London, New York, Chicago, Toronto. The diaspora is helping to promote it. And now they’re selling out the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. There’s so much cultural capital in Africa, and that usually comes first. Cultural capital leads to financial capital. And once you have both, it explodes, like gasoline to a flame.