Don Diablo and A$AP Ferg have officially linked up on ‘Plain Jane‘, a track that started life as a bootleg edit before working its way into an official release via HEXAGON. The collaboration caps off a story that’s been unfolding in Don’s live sets for a while now, long before either artist put pen to paper on a proper feature.
The origins of the record go back to a tour stop in Saudi Arabia, where Don Diablo was sharing the bill with Quavo and Metro Boomin. He’d put together his own take on Ferg’s original ‘Plain Jane’ with no real intention of releasing it — just something to throw into his set for fun. But the reaction from crowds kept escalating every time he played it, and the edit slowly turned into one of the bigger moments of his live show. Eventually it made sense to go back, refine the production, and bring Ferg into the fold to make it official.
The result is a high-energy meeting point between electronic music and hip-hop, continuing a lane Don Diablo has been building out on his upcoming album FLUX. That project has already produced hip-hop crossovers with Wiz Khalifa, Bipolar Sunshine, and Pink Sweat$, plus a remix for Becky G, positioning ‘Plain Jane’ as the latest in a run of genre-blending records rather than a one-off experiment.
Don Diablo has spent more than a decade near the top of dance music’s mainstream, currently sitting at #15 on DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs list. Tracks like ‘On My Mind’ and ‘Cutting Shapes’ helped cement his sound, and his collaboration list reads like a genre-agnostic who’s who — Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber, Gucci Mane, Ed Sheeran, Mark Ronson, Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, Madonna, and Coldplay among them. Outside of music, he’s built out a parallel career in fine art and fashion, with pieces exhibited at the Venice Biennale and Art Basel, and a creative role at HEXAGON’s fashion arm that’s produced collaborations with Disney, Lucasfilm, and Netflix.
A$AP Ferg brings his own history to the pairing. The Harlem rapper and founding member of A$AP Mob broke through in 2012 with ‘Work’ off the mixtape Lords Never Worry, which led to an RCA deal and set him on a path that included two Top Ten albums — Trap Lord in 2013 and Always Strive and Prosper in 2016, the latter featuring Missy Elliott, Chuck D, Skrillex, and Lil Uzi Vert. Since then he’s racked up billions of streams and worked with artists ranging from Nicki Minaj to Pharrell Williams.
‘Plain Jane’ is out now via HEXAGON. Listen below.
