Jack Ü was an American

electronic dance music Electronic dance music (EDM), also referred to as dance music or club music, is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres originally made for nightclubs, raves, and List of electronic dance music festivals, festivals. It is generally ...

duo consisting of

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

producers

Skrillex Sonny John Moore (born January 15, 1988), known professionally as Skrillex, is an American DJ, record producer, musician, singer. Raised in Northeast Los Angeles and Northern California, he began his career in 2004 as the lead vocalist of the ...

and

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

, formed in 2013. They released their first official single, "

Take Ü There "Take Ü There" is the debut collaboration single by American Electronic dance music, EDM DJ duo Skrillex and Diplo together as Jack Ü, written and performed by the duo and Canada, Canadian singer Kiesza, and produced by the duo. It serves as th ...

", featuring vocals from Kiesza, on October 4, 2014. They released their first and only album, '' Skrillex and Diplo Present Jack Ü'', on February 27, 2015. Jack Ü performed at

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

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. Regarded as a pop icon, he is recognized for his multi-genre musical performances. He was discovered by record executive Scooter Braun in 2008 and subsequently brought to the U ...

. 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 A smiley, sometimes called a smiley face, is a basic ideogram representing a Smile, smiling face. Since the 1950s, it has become part of popular culture worldwide, used either as a standalone ideogram or as a form of communication, such as em ...

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 and DJ trio, which includes record producer Diplo, and DJs Walshy Fire and Ape Drums. They were founded in 2008 by Diplo and Switch, with Switch leaving after three years in 2011. He was the ...

, 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's " Let Me Clear My Throat". They later played at the 2015 Ultra Music Festival. They collaborated on a song that combines trap and dubstep elements and features vocals from Korean pop artists CL and

G-Dragon Kwon Ji-yong (; born August 18, 1988), best known as G-Dragon (), is a South Korean rapper, singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur, known as the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of K-pop". Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, G-Drag ...

titled " Dirty Vibe" 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 is a Latin word, used by the Roman Empire, Romans as a salutation (greeting), salutation and greeting, meaning 'wikt:hail, hail'. It is the singular imperative mood, imperative form of the verb , which meant 'Well-being, to be well'; thus on ...

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

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 ...

, 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. By the end of 2015, Jack Ü had over 9.6 million Shazams. That same year, Jack Ü performed at a Clippers 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 the course of its first two decades, starting from the release of its first recor ...

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 a week-long large-scale desert event focused on "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance" held annually in the Western United States. The event's name comes from its ceremony on the penultimate night of the event: the ...

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. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

" by Toto into

DJ Snake William Sami Étienne Grigahcine (born 13 June 1986), known by his stage name DJ Snake, is a French DJ and record producer. He was first credited with production work on several singles for other artists—including " Shut It Down" by Pitbull an ...

and

Lil Jon Jonathan H. Smith (born January 17, 1971), better known by his stage name Lil Jon, is an American rapper, DJ, and record producer. Regarded as a progenitor of the club-oriented hip-hop subgenre crunk, his production and voice presence were inst ...

's platinum record " Turn Down for What" 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, "

", was released on September 17, 2014. In an interview with

Zane Lowe Alexander Zane Reed Lowe (born 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 through pr ...

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 Tauheed K. Epps (born September 12, 1977), known professionally as 2 Chainz (formerly Tity Boi), is an American rapper and actor. Born and raised in College Park, Georgia, he gained recognition as one-half of the Southern hip-hop duo Playaz Ci ...

, "Jungle Bae", "Cumbia Trap" featuring Maluca and "Holla Out" with

Snails A snail is a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gas ...

. "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 Livestreaming, live-streaming, or live streaming is the streaming media, streaming of video or Digital audio, audio in real-time communication, real time or near real time. While often referred to simply as ''streaming'', the real-time nature ...

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 '' Skrillex and Diplo Present Jack Ü'' on iTunes. Alongside the previously announced six tracks, the album's release included unannounced songs "

Where Are Ü Now "Where Are Ü Now" is a song produced by American EDM duo Jack Ü, composed of DJs and producers Skrillex and Diplo, with Canadian singer Justin Bieber. The song was released as the second single from the duo's debut studio album, '' Skrillex a ...

" with

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

Missy Elliott Melissa Arnette "Missy" Elliott (born July 1, 1971), also known as Misdemeanor, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. She began her musical career as a member of the Contemporary R&B, R&B girl group 4 All the Sistas Arou ...

Discography

Studio albums

Singles

Other charted songs

Remixes

Music videos

Production credits

Awards and nominations

American Music Awards

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Grammy Awards

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2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

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Best Dance/Electronic Album The Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards — a ceremony that was established in 1958 — honor quality dance music, dance and electronica albums in any given year. The award was first presented ...

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International Dance Music Awards

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MTV Video Music Awards

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NRJ Music Awards

References

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