Jack Ü was an American DJ duo consisting of

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electro ...

producers

Skrillex Sonny John Moore (born January 15, 1988), known professionally as Skrillex, is an American DJ and music producer. Growing up in Northeast Los Angeles and Northern California, he joined the post-hardcore band From First to Last as the lead si ...

and

Diplo Thomas Wesley Pentz (born November 10, 1978), known professionally as Diplo, is an American DJ and music producer. He is the co-creator and lead member of the electronic dancehall music project Major Lazer, a member of the supergroup LSD wit ...

, formed in 2013. They released their first official single, " Take Ü There", featuring vocals from

Kiesza Kiesa Rae Ellestad (born January 16, 1989), known professionally as Kiesza ( ), is a Canadian singer and multi-instrumentalist from Calgary. In 2017, she was involved in a car accident in Toronto, suffering severe injuries that required her to ...

, on September 17, 2014. On February 3, 2015, the duo announced that they would be working with

Missy Elliott Melissa Arnette Elliott (born July 1, 1971), better known as Missy Elliott or Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliot, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. She embarked on her music career with R&B girl group Sista in the earl ...

on a remix of "Take Ü There". They released their first and only album, ''

Skrillex and Diplo Present Jack Ü ''Skrillex and Diplo Present Jack Ü'' is the only studio album by American DJ duo Jack Ü, individually known as Skrillex and Diplo. It was released on February 27, 2015, by Owsla and Mad Decent, Skrillex and Diplo's respective labels. The album ...

'', on February 27, 2015. Jack Ü performed at

Ultra Music Festival Ultra Music Festival (UMF) is an annual outdoor electronic music festival that takes place during March in Miami, Florida, United States. The festival was founded in 1999 by Russell Faibisch and Alex Omes. It was first held on Miami Beach, ...

Miami in 2014. They also performed at Ultra Music Festival in 2015 with the entire "Jack Ü crew", featuring live contributions from CL, Kai, Diddy, Kiesza and

Justin Bieber Justin Drew Bieber ( ; born March 1, 1994) is a Canadian singer. Bieber is recognized for his genre-melding musicianship and has played an influential role in modern-day popular music. He was discovered by American record executive Scooter ...

. According to Skrillex, the collaboration is called 'Jack Ü' because it refers to how the music "jacks you up" with its high energy beats and bassline. The Ü (U with umlaut) letter appears in titles of all of its singles and is usually stylized to look like a smiley.

History

On September 15, 2013, Jack Ü's debut performance took place at Mad Decent Block Party in San Diego with 3 original tracks: a dubstep-juke hybrid track known as "Shark Patrol", "Bounce it", and a very early version of their collaboration with AlunaGeorge that would later be released as "To Ü" Diplo announced the project by releasing the Mad Decent Block Party lineup with Jack Ü playing at multiple stops on the tour. After some guessing by many of who Jack Ü was, Diplo finally came out to reveal that "Jack Ü ... means Skrillex and Diplo together". The two have worked with each other on assorted projects over the past five years starting with Skrillex singing and playing guitar on a record for

Major Lazer Major Lazer is an American electronic dance music DJ trio, which includes record producer Diplo, and DJs Walshy Fire and Ape Drums. It originates from Kingston, Jamaica, and was founded in 2008 by Diplo and Switch, with Switch leaving af ...

, one of Diplo's other projects. In 2011, Diplo also worked on a song with Skrillex titled "Amplifire" (though it was never completed or released) for '' Bangarang''. On March 30, 2014, Jack Ü was given an hour-long slot to play at the

. The set included a wide variety of genres featuring songs from Skrillex's then newly released first studio album, ''Recess'', and including some old school hip hop with

DJ Kool John W. Bowman Jr. (born March 20, 1958), better known by his stage name DJ Kool, is an American DJ and rapper who produced several popular rap singles in the late 1980s. Career Raised in Washington, D.C., his influence from years of working t ...

's "

Let Me Clear My Throat "Let Me Clear My Throat" is a song by American hip-hop artist DJ Kool. It was released in April 1996 as the third and final single from his album of the same name. It was recorded live at the Bahama Bay club in Philadelphia.CL and

G-Dragon Kwon Ji-yong (; born August 18, 1988), also known by his stage name G-Dragon (지드래곤), is a South Korean rapper, singer-songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur and fashion designer, known as the " King of K-pop". G-Dragon is the recipi ...

titled "

Dirty Vibe "Dirty Vibe" is a single by American record producers Skrillex and Diplo, featuring vocals from G-Dragon and CL. It was released on December 15, 2014, as the fourth single from Skrillex's debut studio album '' Recess'' (2014). The single charted ...

" for Skrillex's album '' Recess''. When asked about how the two ended up forming Jack Ü, Diplo stated that Skrillex "was one of the first producers I met when I moved to LA...we just

ave ''Alta Velocidad Española'' (''AVE'') is a service of high-speed rail in Spain operated by Renfe, the Spanish national railway company, at speeds of up to . As of December 2021, the Spanish high-speed rail network, on part of which the AVE s ...

always been really close musically with our ideas." The two get together in downtown LA or in hotel rooms when on tour to make their songs. Jack Ü en Utopía Festival 2016 (cropped)

Jack Ü en Utopía Festival 2016 (cropped)

On December 31, 2014, Jack Ü headlined a concert at Madison Square Garden. Besides their (Diplo and Skrillex) performance, other performers included

ASAP Ferg Darold Durard Brown Ferguson Jr. (born October 20, 1988), known professionally as ASAP Ferg (stylized as A$AP Ferg), is an American rapper from New York City's Harlem neighborhood. Aside from his solo career, he is a member of the hip hop collec ...

Rudimental Rudimental are a British drum and bass band, signed to Asylum Records, Atlantic Records and Black Butter Records. The band consists of Piers Aggett, Kesi Dryden and Leon "Locksmith" Rolle. They were nominated for a Mercury Prize in 2013, and w ...

and Yellow Claw. The concert was broadcast live on Yahoo. On February 27, 2015, the group released their debut album. They commemorated the event by streaming a 24-hour live DJ set on Twitch, which was shut down 18 hours into the set. Jack Ü had over 9.6 million Shazams in 2015. Jack Ü performed at a 2015

Clippers The Los Angeles Clippers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles. The Clippers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division in the league's Western Conference. The Clipper ...

half-time show along with Kai, Fly Boi Keno (also known as Keno Kamino) and several other celebrities and dancers, later releasing an official video in December. On August 28, 2016, Skrillex wrote on his Twitter page that Jack Ü is done touring "for a long long time", a tweet that was shortly deleted. In March 2017, Diplo described in an interview the difficulty of working with Skrillex while Skrillex is signed to a "major label",

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most im ...

Controversy

On September 1, 2014, Seth Troxler, was set to play his set at the Robot Heart stage at the

Burning Man Burning Man is an event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance held annually in the western United States. The name of the event comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred ...

Festival. However, due to some of his entourage not being allowed to join him behind the DJ decks, Troxler refused to play. Those in charge of the Robot Heart stage needed someone to fill in for Troxler and they asked Skrillex to help. Skrillex played for about half an hour before inviting Diplo to come onto the stage for them to perform as Jack Ü for the rest of the set. Some of the Robot Heart crowd were unhappy, because Skrillex and Diplo are mainstream producers, and the Robot Heart stage is more about underground artists and songs. To finish up their set Diplo mixed the song "

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

" by Toto into

DJ Snake William Sami Étienne Grigahcine (born 13 June 1986), known by his stage name DJ Snake, is an Algerian French music producer and DJ, first achieving international recognition in 2013 by releasing an instrumentation-oriented single called " Turn D ...

and

Lil Jon Jonathan H. Smith (born January 17, 1971) better known by his stage name Lil Jon, is an American rapper, producer and former frontman of the rap group Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz. He was instrumental in the emergence of the hip hop subgenre cr ...

's platinum record "

Turn Down for What "Turn Down for What" is a song by French DJ and record producer DJ Snake and American rapper Lil Jon released on December 18, 2013. The song and its viral music video popularized the use of the phrase. The song was particularly successful in Nor ...

" as "an inside joke". Rumors later surfaced that the two were booed off the stage and forced to end their set early due to playing "Turn Down for What" at a stage that was meant for underground music. Diplo linked to a long statement on his Twitter, saying that "there was no booing... no bad vibes... Everything we did there was good fun and all the people that attended know it".

Releases

Jack Ü's hit debut single, " Take Ü There", was released on September 17, 2014. In an interview with

Zane Lowe Alexander Zane Reid Lowe (born 7 August 1973) is a New Zealand radio DJ, live DJ, record producer, and television presenter. After an early career in music creation, production and DJing, he moved to the UK in 1997. He came to prominence thro ...

of BBC's Radio 1 station, Skrillex explained that the making of the song had a unique process; they were set to play a show in Ibiza, Spain when they saw Canadian pop singer Kiesza perform ahead of them. Impressed with her singing, they asked her to do the vocals for a song. They recorded her vocals in their hotel room and finished the song in one night. During a set at Camp Question Mark of the Burning Man festival (one of eight different sets they played over the course of the festival), the duo played "Take Ü There" along with demo versions of "To Ü", of the electro and future bass genres, featuring vocals from AlunaGeorge. "Beat Knockin'" (Originally titled Beat Steady), which features vocals by New Orleans bounce artist Fly Boi Keno, being some of the first mainstream DJ's to display New Orleans bounce music publicly. In late 2014, Jack Ü played a mix for BBC Radio 1xtra. They played numerous demo versions of tracks and an unreleased song in a two-hour takeover mix including "Febreze" featuring 2 Chainz, "Jungle Bae", "Cumbia Trap" featuring Maluca and "Holla Out" with Snails. "Febreze", "Jungle Bae" and "Holla Out" are all included on their debut record, with "Cumbia Trap" excluded from the album's release. Diplo has also discussed an upcoming Jack Ü mixtape, however no official release date has yet been announced. Skrillex has also mentioned that Jack Ü has "got five songs that we made that aren't even released, and we'll end up releasing in 2014". On February 27, 2015, after attempting to livestream a 24-hour DJ set on Twitch, which was shut down by local authorities at the 18-hour mark, Skrillex and Diplo released their debut collaborative album entitled ''

'' on iTunes. Alongside the previously announced six tracks, the album's release included unannounced songs " Where Are Ü Now" with

, "Mind" featuring Kai, "Don't Do Drugs Just Take Some Jack Ü" and a remixed version of "Take Ü There" featuring

Discography

Studio albums

Singles

Remixes

Other charted songs

Production credits

Awards and nominations

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jack U American DJs American electronic musicians American dance music groups American musical duos Diplo Electronic dance music DJs Electronic dance music duos Electronic music supergroups Grammy Award winners for dance and electronic music Mad Decent artists Owsla artists