Diamanté Anthony Blackmon, who you probably know better as trap superstar DJ Carnage, once described himself in an interview as a "storm chaser."
This came in 2015, following the release of his debut album Papi Gordo, which earned Carnage international acclaim for trap tunes "Bricks" and "I Like Tuh" while also catapulting him to the top of the electronic music industry.
Two years later, he's not so much storm chasing as he is cleaning up the messes they leave behind.
The Guatemalan-American from Frederick, Maryland still packs festival stages and sells out arenas around the world, but the 26-year old now has his sights on something bigger.
After hurricanes Irma and Harvey devastated the Gulf Coast states of Florida and Texas, the leader of the #Chipotlegang was quick to act. After donating $20,000 to the Houston Food Bank, he stayed active supporting those in need following Hurricane Irma and the earthquake in Mexico City, donating personally and calling on fellow artists to do the same. Earlier this month he offered Florida residents an Irma relief discount for this year's Rare Orlando.
While he's spent much of the last month doing philanthropy, he's also doubling as festival organizer.
In 2015, Carnage began his Rare festival series in Southern California. What began as a one off show has grown into a multi-market festival, pairing stars of both hip-hop and electronic music with the brightest up-and-coming talent. Two such shows are currently slated for the fall of 2017, with one in Northern California and another in our neighboring Orlando. Last year, Rare debuted in Orlando with Mac Miller, Marshmello, and Slushii alongside Papi Gordo at O-town's Central Florida Fairgrounds.
Making good on his promise to bring "whatever the people want," Rare and Carnage have come back to Florida with one of the 'best up-and-coming festival lineups" around.
Travis Scott, Zhu, Lil Dicky and 12th Planet are all set to headline with Carnage on October 7th. Lil Pump, Smokepurpp, Graves and Tampa's own Blunts & Blondes round out the undercard.
With all this attention to disaster relief and blowing up the Florida music festival scene, we thought it was only right to talk to the man himself a week out of his Rare festival.
Check out our Q&A below, and click here to purchase tickets for Rare Orlando:
I wanted to touch on a few things. You have a new album out. Two Rare festivals coming up. But as a Floridian, I wanted to talk about some of the philanthropy you've been doing.
For those who don’t follow you on social media, (Author's note: you should) they may not be aware of all the work you’ve been doing for disaster relief victims in Houston, Florida, and Mexico City.
What’s it been like for you to give back to the people that have supported you throughout your career and make such a difference?
Well I mean that's the answer right there. The feeling of giving back is great, you know? It’s a blessing that I’ve been given in life. You always have to give back. We’re all equal, we’re all one so we have to look out for each other.
We have Rare Orlando, a festival curated by yourself, almost a week away. What’s it like having a festival to call your own? Is it fun? Is It challenging?
It’s cool to make a lineup that I feel is one of the best. This year's Rare Orlando lineup is one of the best we’ve made so far. It’s just super dope to be able to put all these different festivals together.
You said the other day on Twitter that Rare Orlando is one of the best lineups among up-and-coming festivals and I agree. Last year’s lineup was good but you’ve arguably blown it out of the water with this year's upgrades (cough, cough Travis Scott.) How involved are you with putting together the lineup? With you being a star yourself, does that help?
100%. I know how everybody plays. I know everyones music. I know people, ya know?
I like people who are cool. I never book someone I don’t like personally. I like good vibes. If you’re a person that has good vibes then for sure I’ll put you on. If you’re a dick, then I’m not going to be fucking with you.
I feel like more people need to positive.
So is that how you are able to book someone like Travis Scott?
He’s the homie. Thats why he’s fucking with us. Thats the really cool part about that. A lot of these rappers, they all know I know a lot of them. They know what I’m doing.
What’s your vision for Rare? Do you plan on expanding to a full weekend or do you like the one day format?
I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about that a lot and if you do a whole three day festival, you really have to have a crazy lineup every day. That’s pretty stressful, one day is already pretty stressful.
But I don’t know. I’m deciding what we should do but one day festivals I think are still always dope to me.
I think the one day works, not to mention all the other stuff that would have to go into a full weekend camping festival.
I don’t like the camping festivals that much. I’ll stick away from that. But I might do a three day festival somewhere thats really dope. I’ve never had some crazy personal camping festival story or experiences that really push me to do that. Growing up I wasn’t really into camping and shit, you know? But we’ll see where it goes. Whatever the people want we’ll do.
Lastly, your new project with Young Thug, Young Martha, has been out almost a week. Overall it's been met with pretty positive reviews. Thug sounds great on the record but I personally love your production, since it’s pretty different from your other material.
What was it like making the EP with Young Thug? Young Thug is notorious for his work ethic in the studio, yet many claim he's difficult to work with (the video director for "Wyclef Jean" may agree.) What was your experience?
He didn’t seem difficult to work with for me, but that’s what makes Young Thug, Young Thug. He’s amazing, he’s a music genius. What he does with the beat you give him, in such a short time, it’s incredible. The EP sounds so good because when I got what he gave me, which he did in a pretty short time, I sat on the songs for weeks and weeks to try and get them perfect. Getting every one of the syllables on beat and making the sound sonically good, working on the beats for a long time. Making like eight different versions of each song. I put a lot of time, especially “10,000 Slimes,” I put a lot of time into all these products, all these songs. There was actually five songs, one got leaked. The time I put into the music, I think, really made a big difference.
That's awesome. I read on Pitchfork that Young Martha is a series. When can we expect a follow up to this first release and are there any more surprise collaborations on there?
We started working on two, but I don’t know. We had such success with his first one, and people really liked it. We might drop an album next, we might keep the series going, we don’t know. It depends on what Thug is doing too.
This project comes after the EP you did with G-Eazy, another rapper. You’ve also worked with Lil Uzi, A$AP Ferg, and Lil Yachty. Looking ahead, who can we expect to see you collab with? With him headlining this year’s Rare and his work with other DJs, is Travis Scott in the cards?
Well the album that I’m working on is going to be pretty sick. I have a lot of new guys coming up on that. But I don’t know, you’re just going to have to wait and see.
Rare Orlando happens on October 7 at Central Florida Fairgrounds in Orlando, Florida. Scheduled to appear are: Travis Scott, Carnage, Lil Dicky, ZHU, 12th Planet b2b Funtcase b2b Cookie Monsta, Kyle, Lil' Pump, Smokepurpp, Graves, Cesqaeux and Skellism b2b Junkie Kid. More information is available here.
This article appears in Sep 28 – Oct 6, 2017.