Managers Diplo & BL3ND Get Into A Fight At The IMS Engage Conference
People at the IMS Engange in Los Angeles were to witness a fight between Diplo and DJ BL3ND‘s managers yesterday afternoon. With what was an enlightening experience of speeches, Q&A’s and informative discussions on Social Media in the music industry, turned into a WWE war zone when managers Kevin Kusatsu (Diplo) and Steven Haddad (DJ BL3ND) broke into fisticuffs.
The event is part of Ibiza’s International Music Summit, which brings together artists, managers, retailers, agents, and other music industry people to discuss the future of the dance music scene. Those speaking and in attendance include Pete Tong (who spearheaded the event), Skrillex, Beatport CEO Matthew Adell, Swedish House Mafia manager Amy Thomson, Russell Simmons and several other high-profile industry people.
Prior to the altercation, Diplo was heading the panel and discussing fake Facebook followers, a hot topic of conversation recently in the industry. Diplo began to discuss that, while he is a “more popular” DJ than DJ BL3ND, he has a mere 390,000 Facebook followers, compared with BL3ND’s 3 million. (DJ BL3ND’s most popular city is on Facebook is Mexico City, an obvious sign that his followers are bought.)
BL3ND’s manager, Haddad, was less than thrilled with the comments, especially when Diplo said that BL3ND’s statistics are questionable considering “he has only played a string of shows in the OC.” Haddad argued during the panel that BL3ND had sold out shows in New York and other areas, when Diplo’s manager, Kevin Kusatsu told Haddad to “Shut Up!” Diplo then commented, “I only have three hundred something thousand facebook likes, but I’m pretty sure I’m bigger than DJ BL3ND”.
While Diplo did his best to backtrack and make amends for the comments, saying that he is actually a fan of BL3ND’s, it apparently was not enough to stop Kusatsu and Haddad from going after each other, after initially attempting to talk it out civilly. The fight was eventually broken up by IMS officials, but has been the talk of the town since it occurred.
Deadmau5 texted Diplo, “Oh man the lols. I never understood this bl3nd character from the start, what kind of fucking idiot puts a number in his name, sticks on a mask, and pretends to DJ anyway” referencing himself.
