After spending years running along the Schuykill, Diplo is leading a 5K run in Philadelphia
For the first time, the superstar DJ is bringing his Run Club to the city where he hosted the wildly popular Hollertonix parties in the 2000s. Connor Barwin is already a fan.
Diplo has always been on the move.
And on Saturday in South Philly, he’ll be on the run.
The globe-trotting DJ-producer whose full name is Thomas Wesley Pentz was born in Tupelo, Miss. — Elvis Presley’s hometown — and grew up in Florida and Tennessee before launching his career in the early 2000s in Philadelphia.
This weekend, he’ll be back in town for Diplo’s Run Club, an early morning event in FDR Park. The writer-producer behind 2025 summer hits by country singer Bailey Zimmerman and K-pop group Blackpink, will be running a 5K with 6000-or-so others before pumping up the post-run crowd in a daytime dance party.
The fitness conscious party person — who conducted the interview for this story via Zoom while shirtless in the red-light lit sauna in his house in Malibu — debuted the Run Club last year in Seattle and San Francisco.
This year, he’s going all-in.
It’s a noncompetitive experience — it’s not a race — in which finishers get a Run Club medal and T-shirt, as well as the option to imbibe alcoholic or non alcoholic libations afterward to try to keep their runner’s high going.
“You wouldn’t believe how many freaking drinks we sell,” said Diplo. “People are like: ‘We ran three miles, we deserve a drink!’”
Philadelphia is the first date of eight Run Club dates between now and January, scattered among his more conventional late night performances in France, the Dominican Republic, and Las Vegas.
The Philly Run Club will wind through “beautiful lakes, winding tree-lined paths, and views of the historic boathouse” in the 111 year old park and make its way around the Navy Yard. The starting gun goes off at 8:30 a.m. and it’s followed first by a set by DJ A-Trak before Diplo takes the stage.
The event is not an official part of Connor Barwin’s Make The World Better Concert Weekend, with planned headline sets by Lucy Dacus on Friday and Remi Wolf on Sunday.
But it’s integrated into MTWB’s aim to introduce Philadelphia to FDR Park as a music destination, and $4 from every Run Club ticket goes to Barwin’s foundation, which rebuilds parks and rec centers throughout Philly.
“It’s just such a fun thing to add in between the two concerts,” said Barwin. “He gets to tap into our infrastructure, and then he really helps us with our fundraising. There’s like a quick DJ set at the start, and then he does the dance party at the end. It’s a genius template.”
Diplo’s running roots go back to high school in Florida. He lived south of Daytona Beach, where his father ran “a white trash bait shop.” Known as Wes to family and friends, he took up his dance music moniker because of a childhood affinity for dinosaurs. It’s short for Diplodocus.
“The only sport I was good at in high school was wrestling,” he recalled. “I was a wrestler because I wanted to be in the WWE.” His favorites, he said, were the Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan, who died two days after the interview.
“When you wrestled, you ran because you wanted to lose weight. In Florida, we would run on a track with garbage bags on our bodies, under our sweatpants. It was crazy. You’d lose like 5 pounds an hour.”
His running ways continued after he moved to Philly to study film at Temple. He lived first in East Falls and then on 13th Street, north of Spring Garden, near PhilaMOCA, the former mausoleum showroom building that was once his studio and headquarters of his Mad Decent record label.
He still owns the building and says he charges “the cheapest rent in Philadelphia.”
When he was trying to get his career off the ground, Diplo DJed in clubs on Delaware Ave., while working as a teacher and social worker at an after school program in North Philadelphia.
“I would ride my bike to the Art Museum and then run along the Schuylkill,” he recalled. “I’d see how far I could run, see how many bridges I could get to. I loved that. I would do it every weekend.”
Diplo hit his stride musically with his DJ partner Low Budget in the early 00s. They were mashup innovators in their wildly popular Hollertronix nights at the Ukie Club, mixing Baltimore club music with Brazilian funk, and Southern hip-hop with British punk and New Wave.
“In Philadelphia, it was like before the word hipster was in the world,” he remembered. “Everybody who came to my parties dressed like they got off work. They came straight from their UPS job, or straight from school.”
“Thank God, Low Budget was a good DJ, because I wasn’t that great … I was just like a crazy person. We had a good DJ and we had a weird DJ. Together, that made a decent party.
Maya Arulpragrasam, the Sri Lankan agit-pop rapper M.I.A., came to see Diplo at the Ukie. His production work with her when they were a couple included “Bucky Done Gun,” which was fired with a “Theme From Rocky” sample and “Paper Planes,” which quoted the Clash and became a global smash hit.
His discography in the years since is too vast to detail, from production work for Beyoncé and Madonna, to innumerable projects like Jack U with Skrillex, to his country music alter ego Thomas Wesley to Major Lazer, the electronic dance hall project he’s reigniting this fall.
He left Philadelphia by 2010, though he does drop back in, like to sit ringside at the WWE event at Lincoln Financial Field last year. He was highly visible in Eagles green during Super Bowl week in New Orleans, and was seen clowning with the Phillie Phanatic and running up the Rocky steps, promoting the Run Club earlier this summer.
Now 46, he’s gotten back into running and biking. “I probably do run about 20 miles a week now,” he said. “Though lately I’ve been on my bike on Peloton, because I want to make sure I don’t get hurt before these Run Club shows.”
In 2022, he ran a half-marathon in Miami. The finish line was conveniently located a block away from the strip club where he often works.
“A friend of mine was DJing. The run was over by 9 a.m. and the headliner was just starting. I looked like a dork with my bib on. But I went to the booth, and got some shots. It was fun. I did a little TikTok and it went viral. I was like, ‘S —, this is a good idea.’“
That’s how the Run Club started.
Tickets from Diplo’s Run Club go from $52 to $213. More info is at diplosrunclub.com/events.