Diamond Platinumz on How Tapping Into Happiness Made Him Tanzania’s Biggest Star: ‘We Don’t Wanna Wait for the Politician to Unite Us’

As Tanzania’s biggest star, Diamond Platinumz has a lot of pressure on his shoulders. Still, that weight evaporates as he glides into the Billboard offices, cameras flashing, alongside his team. He runs through some new music with a rambunctious spirit, bouncing around the conference room, hitting a few slick dance moves along the way. The songs are jovial, upbeat, pumped to the maximum with high spirited vibes. Platinumz has become a global star in part thanks to his carefree spirit, which he explains to me wasn’t always the case.

On Platinumz earliest records, such as 2018’s A Boy From Tandale, he made much heavier music, what he calls “heartbroken songs.” As he pivoted into more upbeat rhythms, and more collaborations, he also made sure his music was able to cater to a wider audience. As Diamond Platinumz tells it, it’s all very technical and intentional.

“If I don’t trust the song, I don’t send it to an artist,” he says to Billboard. “If I know I can send a song to Chris Brown and Chris Brown can do it, why should I send him a trash song? I have to get a proper, global hit, so that when we do it, we achieve that goal. Then it makes it easier next time for Chris Brown to trust you to do another song. One artist can see a vision of a song but another might not see it, so as artists we respect each other, right? So if you send a song to a person and the song doesn’t become a hit. He may never wanna do it [again].”

This intentionality has ultimately led to major success, from collaborations with Alicia Keys and Ne-Yo to a stateside festival slot at this year’s Summer Jam. All the while, Platinumz has committed himself to evoke joy rather than sadness. He aims to go even harder with this on his next album, which he says will drop sometime in September. In the meantime, Diamond Platinumz talks Billboard through his rise, and what changes led to him building an international audience.

You just played us a new song called “Down.” It’s incredibly energetic and seems meant for the dance floor. How important is it for you to make joyful music?

I used to do a lot of heartbroken songs, that’s how I came up in the game. I was known for writing heartbroken songs, but it used to be in my language, Swahili. And people loved me because of the way how I write. It makes people crying and like I was relieving them. But then those songs were limiting me because, first of all, for a person to understand what I’m talking about, they have to understand my language. So I say, If I want to conquer the global market, I need to find how to gain the whole global market. People want to be happy, people want to have fun. So I came out with some ideas of [making] joyful songs, happy parties, lots of dance moves, challenges…

Do you miss tapping into that slower, more emotional music?

I do, that’s where I came from. I have a lot of heartbroken songs that I’m trying to find a way of how I can release them, but I can’t get a chance to. Because I feel like, how can I look at just a few people who are from my home, while the rest of the world [is] waiting for me to give them something? I’m trying to balance it, and it’s very difficult. I don’t wanna lie to you, no matter how much I can release these type of [fun] songs, those [emotional] songs are my first favorite songs. When I’m in my room, I listen to those songs. So sometimes you can have a song that you love the most, and it’s so sad that you don’t see when you can release it.

Now that you’ve set that precedent of releasing happier music, do you ever feel pressure to create that kind of music even when you’re not in that state of mind?

From where I came from, they also want a representative. And the representative can’t be with those songs. So they also need someone that can make them proud, and it’s very hard for me to make them proud through those [sadder] songs. No matter how much I understand, sometimes I miss those songs, when I drop those global, happy songs, they think, “at least now we have our representative.” When I give them Swahili songs, they go crazy — like if you go see the numbers, they go crazy — but what can we do? At the end of the day we can’t just be there every day.

How did you approach your new album differently than First of All?

When I do music, I take a lot of time researching to give [my fans] the proper content. You need to have proper research, to take your time to express your feelings. Someone told me that if you look at a tree, everyone can come with an idea about the tree. I can look at it and use it to garden, if I’m a businessman I can look at it and get wood out of it. When a bird sees it, it feels like it can create a home. If an old man comes they feel, “OK, I can chill.” You get the point. So I take my time to [hone] whatever perspective I want to give to the people.

The one thing that stuck out to me was the break from your last album till now. Being the biggest artist out of Tanzania, do you ever feel pressure to churn out music faster than you have been?

And [First of All] was an EP… Everybody has their perspective, so I take my time to have a better album and better perspective so people can be happy. I love taking time. I feel like sometimes, I also hate dropping albums. There’s no way I put trash songs in my album, but when you drop the album sometimes, it kills a lot of songs — because people want this one focused song. Then other songs other songs end up looking just in the way, and I hate that. I think that’s also the reason why it took me some time to get it done.

You’ve collaborated with a bunch of artists both African and from the U.S. How is the experience of working with someone like Ne-Yo or Alicia Keys different from an African artist?

It’s so different, because I have the verses for my community, I have verses for the continent of Africa, and I have the verses for the global. So every artist I work with I have to be careful because it can’t be the same. If you do something for Swahili people it’s very easy, but if you have to be a global star, then you have to be very careful in whatever you do. When I do a global verse it has to benefit both sides. All must love it, and the rest of the world must love it.

So in my home, they love the most when I do Swahili. So I need to mix English, Swahili and whatever the global melody is, right? But even that Swahili has to be very strategic, so that even if you don’t understand it, you can love it. Then when I do English, my people back home have to love it as well. So it’s very technical, when I do those verses. You see this on “Komasava.” I was just greeting people saying, “How are you?” Because I knew if I put in different greetings it was very easy to catch global attention.

Was there a moment when you were coming up when you realized you had caught that global attention?

I knew when I started getting big shows out of Africa. We started seeing different people of different colors, with different nationality from different continents. I was like, “Oh, OK, so now that’s how it is.”

I feel like the Afro space in general has become very crowded, how do you make sure you stand out among the other artists coming up right now?

The face that I do Swahili. This is my uniqueness. And, I know there’s different artists, but my moves — I’m the only African artist who can do all songs from the world. If you check amapiano, I’ve done crazy amapiano, if you go check Congolese songs, I’ve got crazy Congolese songs. I’m trying to make sure that I use every angle of our [sound] to where it continues on making our people prowd.

What do you attribute that chameleon ability to?

I think I do a lot of research. Like I said, I love taking time. If I wanna do an amapiano song, I’m like, “Why do people love these kind of songs?” If you wanna do Chinese! Like, “How do Chinese do this?” Because of the hooks? Those high notes? Then from there, after knowing that, I ask, “How can I tap in? How can I fuse it? How can I get in there?” I’m from Tanzania, Swahili, how can I put bongo flava into it? To me, I’m a musician, I don’t wanna put my stuff in a box. I wanna show my fans how creative and talented I am. I can do whatever, I can make them proud at every angle.

You also run multiple businesses. What has being your own boss taught you about how to be a better artist?

Being your own boss is very difficult. Maintaining all of these things is hectic, and sometimes, like in the middle of an interview you may receive a call and there’s craziness happening there. So you have to maintain your happy face, your interview face, while your face gets burned.

I remember when I was shooting the “Komasava” video in Paris. I received a call from Tanzania, there was some tax issues, you know, all companies have those. I was like, “What happened now?” “Your account has been locked.” It’s like, “How?” I’m in the middle of the “Komasava” video shoot. I cried man, I cried. Then I started calling my CFO. I was like, “What happened?” He said, “Oh some documentary was supposed to submit.” I was like, “Then submit it, submit them!” You get the point, but I received it in the middle of shooting “Komasava.” We sorted it out, but I went to the bathroom and I cried.

That sounds stressful. What’s the key to being present in those moments in order to do your best work?

At the end of the day, to me, if you and I have a better future, a better retirement, exiting plan, unity, be a businessman. You can’t be a musician every day. You can’t be singing all the time. We are getting old. If you look at all those big artists, they invested, so I invest a lot.

I think it’s just to understand that nothing lasts. Everything will come and go. You can get stressed, but when I get to those moments. All I think to do is to solve things. You can’t run away from whatever comes. Once you decide to do business, you have to face the consequences when it comes to accounts, to your employees, everything. So whatever comes, you have to face it. You know, musicians, most of them, they hate facing consequences. People want to be both, but they don’t wanna act like both. They wanna be CEOs, but they don’t know how to be a CEO. It takes a lot, and it takes you to be passionate. Trust me, if you wanna be a businessman, your art things have to be on the side. It’s very difficult, if you bring your artistic things into the business, you get f—ked up.

All the singles you’ve released so far have been collaborations with other artists. How important is collaboration on this upcoming project?

To me, it creates a bridge between me and my fellow musician. It brings the whole world together, sharing the culture. At the end of the day as a musician, we don’t wanna wait for the politician to unite us when you can use your careers to make the world united and make people happy. WE can bring the world together through our music. We shouldn’t just wait for presidents to do so. To me, I believe collaboration has a lot of value as a human! It brings you together.