When his radio-friendly debut album dropped last year, Dillon Francis Drops Steamy NSFW Video for ‘Not Butter’: Watch
Slated for release on August 14 through Columbia Records, the seven-track offering features marquee guests like Calvin Harris, Skrillex, Chromeo and Bro Safari, and can now be pre-ordered on iTunes.
Check out This Mixtape Is Fire’s first single ““Bruk Bruk (I Need Your Lovin)” below:
Billboard found Francis blitzing through a Las Vegas hotel’s halls on a swegway and managed to halt him long enough to discuss This Mixtape is Fire and his hopes of reinvigorating moombahton.
Tell us what you can about This Mixtape Is Fire.
All of it’s super back to the original stuff that I was making, kind of like the Westside! EP, but it’s all revamped. It sounds newer to me. I just got re-inspired back into moombahton. It’s a crazy party EP, so when people put it on, it’s going to be their Friday night mix or something.
Was it fun to revisit that material after making your album Money Sucks, Friends Rule?
Yeah it was so much fun. I had made it for so long, and I got sick of it. People were like, “Why don’t you make this anymore?” and I’m like, “I can’t do it if I’m not inspired by it.” Then I listened to a bunch of old Munchi stuff, and I really got re-inspired. The EP just came from that. The song that Bro Safari and I made, it’s called “Pull It.” We had originally called it “Ode to Munchi,” ’cause I had tried to make one of the songs called “Ode to Munchi” a long time ago. I feel like the song that we made is pretty much what he would want. I feel like the EP is kind of like that. I just started talking to him recently again, I’m about to send it to him and hopefully he gives it the Munchi approval.
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What’s your sense for where moombahton’s at? Nadastrom’s album went in a whole different direction.
Yeah, they’re going real deep. I love that stuff so much. It’s weird, I feel like I’m the only person that’s really making moombahton at all. Everyone else just stopped doing it. i don’t event think Knife Party even did one for their album. I feel like they had a song they were going to put out, but then they didn’t, because I remember hearing one of their live mixes. They had this really cool 110 bpm crazy song and it just didn’t make the cut for anything. I’m hoping that it re-inspires people to go back to 110. Everyone’s doing 100 bpm or 128. I also wanted to do it because I had no new material to play for 110 bpm. I was playing a lot of the same songs. I felt like I was cheating everybody because I couldn’t find any 110 bpm songs that I liked. I know there’s some producers out there that are making it, but I haven’t listened to a lot that I’ve been like, “Oh yeah this is awesome.”
What music has been inspiring you recently?
I love Drezo’s stuff so much. He recently did a remix for Vice, and it’s one of the coolest remixes ever. His bass line stuff is so cool, so different from all of the other stuff. He’s really in his own lane. It’s so cool and refreshing to hear that instead of “generic deep house bass line.” This guy NGHTMRE is really good — he has a release on Mad Decent soon. It sounds like a toy box deteriorating, in the best way possible. I mean, Wiwek has probably been the most prolific dude, him and Gregor Salto. Each of their collaborations has been so cool. That’s a good list of a couple people I’ve been listening to.
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This Mixtape Is Fire track list:
1. Dillon Francis – “Bruk Bruk (I Need Your Lovin)”
2. Dillon Francis & Calvin Harris – “What’s Your Name”
3. Dillon Francis & Skrillex – “Bun Up the Dance”
4. Dillon Francis & Bro Safari – “Pull It”
5. Dillon Francis – “Coming Over” ft. James Hersey
6. Dillon Francis – “Lies” ft. Chromeo
7. Dillon Francis – “I Can’t Take It (Party Favor Remix)”