DJ Dark
GORDO (real name — Diamanté Anthony Blackmon; born 3 January 1991, Washington, D.C., USA) is an American DJ and music producer of Nicaraguan heritage who previously achieved international fame under the alias Carnage. During the first half of the 2010s, Blackmon became one of the prominent figures of the American EDM boom and the rise of festival trap — a hybrid of trap, hip-hop, big room house and heavy festival-oriented electronic music. In 2021, he began developing the GORDO project, focused primarily on house, tech house, melodic house, Afro house and techno, and in 2022 he officially ended his career as Carnage.
GORDO’s story is unusual because the second major phase of his career was not an attempt to return after a decline in popularity, but an almost complete reconstruction of his musical identity. The producer abandoned the sound that had made him a star of EDM festivals, shifted toward deeper club music and simultaneously expanded his work as a producer for other artists. His collaboration with Drake became particularly important: Blackmon’s involvement in Honestly, Nevermind, For All the Dogs and later projects by the Canadian artist turned GORDO into a link between the contemporary house scene, hip-hop and mainstream pop culture.
Childhood between the United States, Guatemala and Nicaragua
Diamanté Blackmon was born in Washington, D.C. into a family with Nicaraguan roots. A significant part of his early childhood was spent in Guatemala, where he was raised by his mother and aunt. The family also maintained close ties with Nicaragua, the country of origin of his relatives.
When Diamanté was around ten years old, he returned to the United States. The artist later recalled that at the time he spoke little English and grew up with very limited financial resources. The family settled in Maryland, and Blackmon attended Walkersville High School near Frederick.
His connection to American, Nicaraguan and Guatemalan cultures would later become an important part of his musical identity. During the GORDO era, his Latin American heritage was no longer simply mentioned in interviews but began to directly influence his choice of vocalists, rhythmic ideas and the concepts behind individual releases.
First DJ performances
Blackmon became interested in DJing during his teenage years. At around sixteen, he began playing small events and clubs around Frederick. His professional development coincided with the late 2000s — a period marked by the rapid spread of digital production, music blogs, SoundCloud and a new American EDM scene.
At the same time, Blackmon was producing hip-hop beats. This would later become one of the defining features of his career: he never viewed electronic music and rap as two completely separate worlds. Even before achieving international recognition, he was equally interested in the club energy of electronic music and the mechanics of hip-hop production.
Carnage and the birth of festival trap
Diamanté first achieved widespread recognition under the name Carnage. The turning point in his electronic career came around 2012, when his remixes and festival-oriented reworks of well-known EDM tracks began attracting significant attention from DJs and audiences.
One of the most notable was the Carnage Festival Trap Remix of Spaceman by Dutch producer Hardwell. At the time, the American scene was actively combining Southern hip-hop and trap with the massive synthesizers of European EDM. Carnage became one of the producers who transferred characteristic trap drums, sub-bass and hip-hop rhythms onto enormous festival stages.
This helped shape the sound that came to be known as festival trap. It was not traditional trap in the hip-hop sense. Producers used its rhythmic language within EDM structures: huge buildups, dramatic pauses before the climax, aggressive synthesizer drops and material designed for crowds of tens of thousands.
Carnage quickly became one of the most recognisable representatives of the style.
Incredible with Borgore
One of his early signature releases was Incredible, created with Israeli producer Borgore. The track embodied the maximalist aesthetic of early-2010s EDM: a huge drop, heavy bass and an almost deliberately excessive level of festival energy.
Tracks like this established Carnage as an artist who was never particularly interested in maintaining the purity of a single genre. His DJ sets and studio productions could combine trap, electro house, hardstyle, big room and hip-hop.
The Underground and the development of a heavier club sound
In 2014, Carnage released The Underground with Dutch producer Alvaro. The track developed the heavier side of his electronic sound and became a notable release from his festival era.
Rather than following a traditional pop structure, Carnage often built these tracks around tension before the drop and the physical impact of low frequencies. The primary objective was not to tell a conventional song-based story, but to provoke the strongest possible reaction from a large crowd.
Bricks with Migos — connecting EDM and rap
That same year, one of the most important releases of his early career appeared: Bricks with Migos.
The track is particularly representative of Carnage’s approach. Instead of simply placing a rapper over a standard electronic instrumental, he built the music directly at the boundary between the two scenes. The hip-hop vocal delivery remained intact, while the bass architecture and energy were designed to work equally well at an EDM festival.
This ability to connect electronic music with artists from American rap became one of Blackmon’s defining professional strengths.
WDYW and I Like Tuh
In early 2015, Carnage continued exploring hip-hop with the single WDYW, featuring Lil Uzi Vert, A$AP Ferg and Rich the Kid. It was followed by I Like Tuh with ILoveMakonnen.
I Like Tuh became one of Carnage’s most recognisable tracks and was certified Gold in the United States. These releases made it clear that rap was not simply a side experiment within his EDM career: Blackmon was effectively building his own territory between two industries.
Toca with Timmy Trumpet and KSHMR
Another side of Carnage was represented by Toca, recorded with Timmy Trumpet and KSHMR. Here, hip-hop moved into the background while massive festival EDM became the central focus.
By the middle of the decade, Carnage could work just as naturally with Migos or Lil Uzi Vert as he could release material with leading figures from the large-scale electronic scene.
Papi Gordo — the first album
On 30 October 2015, Carnage released his debut studio album Papi Gordo through Ultra Records. The title already contained the word Gordo, which many years later would become his primary stage name.
The album combined nearly every style associated with Carnage: festival EDM, trap, hip-hop, hardstyle and more melodic electronic music. Guests included Rick Ross, Migos, OG Maco, ILoveMakonnen, Lil Uzi Vert, A$AP Ferg, Rich the Kid, Ty Dolla $ign and other artists. Electronic tracks also featured KSHMR, Timmy Trumpet, Atmozfears and other producers.
Papi Gordo reached No. 1 on the US Dance/Electronic Albums chart and peaked at No. 184 on the Billboard 200. For a producer whose music deliberately existed between festival EDM and rap, the album became a logical culmination of the first major phase of his career.
Why Carnage mattered to the relationship between EDM and hip-hop
Carnage was not the first electronic producer to work with rappers, nor did he invent the fusion of trap and electronic music. His importance lies more in the scale at which this model was introduced to the American festival scene.
In the early 2010s, EDM and contemporary hip-hop were both experiencing explosive growth, yet their audiences and professional infrastructures still largely existed separately. Carnage worked systematically with artists from both scenes and demonstrated that the same producer could perform at the biggest EDM festivals while also creating fully developed material for major rappers.
This genre mobility would later become equally important to the GORDO project.
Step Brothers with G-Eazy
In 2017, Carnage released the collaborative EP Step Brothers with G-Eazy. The project continued his deeper move into hip-hop and reached No. 81 on the Billboard 200.
For Blackmon, it was another step away from being seen exclusively as an EDM DJ and toward an independent career as a hip-hop producer.
Heavyweight Records
In 2017, Carnage launched his own label, Heavyweight Records. Its catalogue focused primarily on heavy bass music, trap and hip-hop.
Heavyweight became an extension of Carnage’s own aesthetic: rather than enforcing genre orthodoxy, the label focused on aggressive club music and the intersections between electronic music and rap. Blackmon also released his own material through the imprint.
Young Martha with Young Thug
One of the most interesting production projects of this period was the collaborative EP Young Martha with Young Thug, released on 22 September 2017.
Across its four tracks, Carnage moved noticeably away from his familiar festival formula. The production was built directly around Young Thug’s unconventional vocal delivery, with Meek Mill appearing among the guests.
The project is important for understanding Blackmon’s later development: even at this stage he showed that he could do more than simply place rap vocals over EDM, working instead as a hip-hop producer capable of adapting an instrumental to a specific performer.
Battered Bruised & Bloody
On 13 April 2018, Carnage released his second studio album, Battered Bruised & Bloody. On this record, rap was already far more dominant than traditional EDM.
Guests included Mac Miller, MadeinTYO, Lil Pump, Migos, KILLY, Kyle, Takeoff and others. Key tracks included Learn How to Watch with Mac Miller and MadeinTYO, i SHYNE with Lil Pump and Waterworld with Migos.
If Papi Gordo attempted to contain almost the entire musical world of Carnage, the second album presented Blackmon’s movement toward hip-hop production much more clearly.
A touring break and reassessment of his career
By the end of 2018, years of relentless touring had begun to take their toll. Carnage announced a break, explaining that he needed to focus on his physical and mental health. He returned to performing in 2019.
A much deeper reassessment, however, came during the COVID-19 pandemic. The forced pause in constant travel gave Blackmon the opportunity to think not only about his health, but also about what kind of music he genuinely wanted to create.
Letting People Go and a personal migration story
One of Carnage’s most personal later works was Letting People Go. Its music video addressed migration and drew on the history of Blackmon’s own family.
The producer explained that his mother and relatives had themselves gone through a difficult migration journey, so contemporary debates about migrant families at the US border did not feel like an abstract political issue to him. TIME also connected the story behind the song with Blackmon’s childhood in Guatemala and his family’s migration history.
Musically, Letting People Go was important as well: its calmer, more melodic sound anticipated the later departure from the aggressive Carnage aesthetic.
The birth of GORDO
During the pandemic, Blackmon spent some time living in Hawaii and began seriously changing both his lifestyle and musical priorities. The new project GORDO emerged from this reassessment.
Initially, GORDO existed alongside Carnage. The first official single under the new project was KTM, released on 26 February 2021 through Ultra Records. Instead of festival trap, the track was built around tech-house rhythms and a much more restrained form of club progression.
This was not simply a change of tempo or another side project. Blackmon was deliberately creating a musical identity that would allow him to escape the expectations associated with Carnage.
Why GORDO is more than simply a new name for Carnage
The main difference between the two projects lies in their approach to energy.
Carnage built music primarily around immediate physical impact: a huge drop, sharp contrasts, heavy bass and the reaction of a festival crowd. GORDO works much more frequently with groove and gradual development. Long rhythmic passages, repeating basslines, percussion, vocal textures and the ability for a track to function inside an extended club set are much more important.
Blackmon has explained that house and techno reflected music he had long listened to away from the stage, and that GORDO finally allowed him to put that side of his taste at the centre of his own work.
TARAKA
In September 2021, the second major single of the new era appeared: TARAKA. The name would later become central to GORDO’s own event series.
TARAKA developed as more than simply a party brand. It became a curated format in which Blackmon personally selects the lineup, prioritises extended sets, unexpected guests and a comparatively minimalist club production. Events have taken place in cities across North and South America, Europe and other regions.
For GORDO, TARAKA performs roughly the same function that his own label and festival projects did during the Carnage era: instead of creating only individual releases, it allows him to build an entire performance environment around the music.
The definitive end of Carnage
In May 2022, Blackmon officially announced the end of Carnage. Until that point, GORDO and the old alias had coexisted for some time, but the new project now became his primary and only artistic identity.
The decision was significant. Blackmon was abandoning the brand under which he had spent more than a decade performing at major festivals and building an international career. According to him, the former project no longer reflected either his musical direction or his personal state.
RIZZLA, Leaving Earth and the expansion of the new sound
After KTM and TARAKA, the GORDO catalogue expanded quickly. With The Martinez Brothers and Rema he released RIZZLA, while a collaboration with French project KAS:ST resulted in the more techno-oriented track Leaving Earth.
These releases demonstrated that the new project was not limited to a single narrow form of tech house. Blackmon began moving between minimalist house, melodic techno, Afro house and tougher club material.
Honestly, Nevermind — another major turning point
The main breakthrough for GORDO arrived in the summer of 2022, when Blackmon became one of the key producers on Drake’s dance-oriented album Honestly, Nevermind.
GORDO contributed to several of the record’s key tracks, including Currents, Calling My Name, Sticky, Massive and Tie That Binds. The album differed radically from Drake’s traditional rap discography, drawing heavily on house, club electronics and the influence of African dance music.
For Blackmon, the work had two major implications. First, it proved his ability as a producer outside the Carnage identity. Second, it introduced GORDO’s new house-oriented sound to an enormous audience that may not have followed the electronic club scene at all.
No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100 Producers
After the release of Honestly, Nevermind, GORDO reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Producers chart. The ranking reflected the success of the Drake tracks he had produced on the Billboard Hot 100.
The achievement was especially symbolic: less than a year and a half after launching his new alias, Blackmon received one of the strongest professional validations of his work specifically as a producer rather than as a festival DJ.
Continuing the collaboration with Drake
The collaboration did not end with Honestly, Nevermind. In 2023, GORDO contributed to Drake’s album For All the Dogs.
His production credits included Gently with Bad Bunny and Rich Baby Daddy with Sexyy Red and SZA. Blackmon therefore continued connecting electronic production with hip-hop and contemporary pop inside one of the largest commercial catalogues of his era.
Hombres y Mujeres and the Latin American direction
At the same time, Latin American influence became increasingly visible in GORDO’s own music. Hombres y Mujeres with Colombian artist Feid combined minimalist house production with Spanish-language vocals.
This approach differed significantly from the standard model of simply placing “Latin vocals over EDM”. GORDO attempted to bring artists into a club environment without completely stripping away their own musical identities.
El Más Chingón, Parcera and With You
This direction continued through a series of collaborations. With Dominican artist El Alfa came El Más Chingón, while Colombian singer Maluma appeared on Parcera.
At the same time, GORDO continued working within the European electronic scene. His collaboration with duo Adriatique, With You, revealed a more melodic and atmospheric side of his club sound.
DIAMANTE — the first GORDO album
On 26 July 2024, GORDO released DIAMANTE — the first full-length album created directly under the GORDO name. The title comes from the artist’s real first name and underlines the personal nature of the project.
The final version contains 16 tracks, runs for roughly one hour and was released through Ultra Records.
DIAMANTE effectively brought together the entire previous trajectory of Blackmon’s career. House and Afro house meet tech house, melodic electronic music, Latin music, rap and pop vocals, while club rhythm remains the foundation connecting all of these elements.
Drake — Sideways and Healing
Drake appears on two tracks from DIAMANTE: Sideways and Healing. Both develop the musical model explored on Honestly, Nevermind: soft vocals are placed not over a conventional hip-hop beat, but inside melodic house and Afro house.
These are particularly important tracks for the album. In 2022, GORDO helped Drake enter the space of dance music; on GORDO’s own album, the roles were reversed, with Drake becoming a guest inside GORDO’s musical world.
Latin and hip-hop collaborations on DIAMANTE
Other tracks broadened the picture of Blackmon’s musical biography even further. Feid appeared on Hombres y Mujeres, Maluma on Parcera, Nicki Nicole and Sech on Cafecito, while Mexican-American group Fuerza Regida appeared on Nene.
The connection to American hip-hop remained through Kill For This Shit, which uses vocal material from the late rapper Young Dolph, while Target features T-Pain.
In this way, DIAMANTE brings together almost all of the cultural spaces through which Blackmon’s life has passed: Central America, American rap, festival electronics and the contemporary international house scene.
Afro house and a more restrained sense of dynamics
One of the main differences between DIAMANTE and the Carnage albums is its approach to dynamics. Far fewer tracks are built around a single enormous festival drop.
Instead, GORDO works with repeating percussion, organic bass movement, gradual changes in arrangement and vocal phrases that become part of the groove itself.
The influence of Afro house is especially noticeable. This language allows him to combine club structure, vocals and more organic polyrhythms without returning to the maximalism of the Carnage era. In an interview with the Recording Academy, Blackmon himself named laid-back house, melodic techno and Afro house among his current musical interests.
NO HAY VERANO SIN GORDO
In December 2024, GORDO released the six-track EP NO HAY VERANO SIN GORDO. The project further strengthened the connection between GORDO’s electronic music and contemporary Latin American and Spanish-language pop and rap.
Guests included Sfera Ebbasta, Bad Gyal, Emilia, Eladio Carrión and other artists. Tracks included NO NO NO, Wet, Outside and Olvidarte. The EP contains six tracks and runs for approximately 18 minutes.
If DIAMANTE presented the full range of GORDO’s musical identity, this project deliberately focused on the bridge between club house and Latin urban music.
Production work with Drake in 2026
The collaboration between GORDO and Drake continued after DIAMANTE. In 2026, Blackmon received production credits on nine tracks from Drake’s album MAID OF HONOUR.
The scale of his involvement further established GORDO not simply as a guest electronic producer, but as one of the recurring collaborators through whom Drake explores house and other forms of contemporary dance music.
TARAKA as a self-contained club ecosystem
Alongside his releases, GORDO continues developing TARAKA. Events in the series have taken place from New York and Miami to Mykonos, Amsterdam and cities across Latin America.
The series has particular importance for the artist. GORDO can play extended sets without restricting himself to his best-known tracks. TARAKA can accommodate house, tech house, Afro house, melodic techno and harder club styles — which is why the format reflects his current musical identity more accurately than a standard short festival slot.
Philanthropy and schools in Nicaragua
An important part of Blackmon’s activities is connected with education. After achieving commercial success, he financed the construction of schools in Nicaragua.
The artist connects this work with his childhood in Central America and his family’s understanding of how strongly education can change a child’s opportunities. Even during the Carnage era, he built two schools there, extending his connection with his family’s homeland beyond the music industry.
GORDO’s musical style
GORDO’s current style cannot be reduced to tech house alone. His catalogue includes house, tech house, Afro house, melodic house, melodic techno and elements of harder club electronics.
One essential characteristic has survived from the Carnage era: a lack of fear when it comes to collisions between genres. What has changed is primarily the way these combinations are executed.
Carnage combined genres through contrast: rap could suddenly explode into a festival drop, while hardstyle could sit alongside trap. GORDO more often attempts to make different styles part of the same overall groove. Latin American or hip-hop vocals do not interrupt the house track but are integrated directly into its rhythmic structure.
GORDO as a DJ
The character of his DJ sets has changed as well. During the Carnage era, the main objective was to manipulate the excitement of a large festival audience as quickly as possible through sharp transitions between hits, drops and genres.
GORDO’s sets allow far more room for extended development. He can hold a groove for longer, work with minimal rhythmic changes and allow tracks to exist as more than simply a series of climaxes.
At the same time, Blackmon has not become a musical purist. His club sets remain open enough to combine underground house with recognisable vocal material and unexpected genre turns.
DJ Carnage and GORDO — two sides of one career
It would be historically inaccurate to view GORDO simply as a “new house DJ”. His current professional level is directly connected to everything he learned as Carnage.
The first project taught Blackmon how to work with huge festival crowds, produce hip-hop, collaborate with vocalists and build music around strong physical impact.
GORDO did not erase that experience but changed the way it is applied. Heavy drops gave way to groove, festival trap to house and Afro house, yet the ability to connect electronic music with artists from different cultures and genres remained central to his method.
Main discography
Studio albums as Carnage
- Papi Gordo — 2015
- Battered Bruised & Bloody — 2018
Studio albums as GORDO
- DIAMANTE — 2024
Main EPs
- Step Brothers — 2017, with G-Eazy
- Young Martha — 2017, with Young Thug
- NO HAY VERANO SIN GORDO — 2024
Key releases from the Carnage era
- Incredible — with Borgore
- The Underground — with Alvaro
- Bricks — with Migos
- WDYW — with Lil Uzi Vert, A$AP Ferg and Rich the Kid
- I Like Tuh — with ILoveMakonnen
- Toca — with Timmy Trumpet and KSHMR
- Homie — with Young Thug and Meek Mill
- Learn How to Watch — with Mac Miller and MadeinTYO
- i SHYNE — with Lil Pump
- Letting People Go
Key GORDO releases
- KTM
- TARAKA
- RIZZLA — with The Martinez Brothers and Rema
- Leaving Earth — with KAS:ST
- Hombres y Mujeres — with Feid
- El Más Chingón — with El Alfa
- With You — with Adriatique
- Parcera — with Maluma
- Cafecito — with Nicki Nicole and Sech
- Sideways — with Drake
- Healing — with Drake
- Target — with T-Pain
- Olvidarte — with Emilia
Production work for Drake
A separate part of GORDO’s discography consists of tracks where he works primarily as a producer rather than the lead artist. On Honestly, Nevermind, these include Currents, Calling My Name, Sticky, Massive and Tie That Binds. On For All the Dogs, he contributed to Gently and Rich Baby Daddy. In 2026, his production involvement expanded even further on MAID OF HONOUR.
GORDO’s place in contemporary electronic music
Diamanté Blackmon’s career is especially notable for his ability to survive a radical change in musical eras. Carnage became famous at a time when the global electronic scene was defined by huge EDM festivals, festival trap, big room and a culture built around the most powerful possible drop. GORDO emerged in a different environment — amid renewed global interest in house, Afro house, extended club sets and a more organic relationship between electronic music, hip-hop and Latin American culture.
The second phase cannot simply be described as adapting to a trend. Blackmon effectively abandoned the commercially recognisable Carnage identity and began rebuilding his name inside a completely different scene. Early releases such as KTM and TARAKA established the direction, his work on Honestly, Nevermind proved his ability as a producer on a global scale, and DIAMANTE brought the new identity together in a full-length album.
At the same time, the connection with his past never disappeared. Both Carnage and GORDO are based on the same underlying idea: electronic music should not exist inside closed genre boundaries. During the first half of his career, Blackmon connected festival EDM with American rap. In the second, house and techno interact with Afro rhythms, Latin American music, R&B and hip-hop.
This is why GORDO occupies an unusual position on the contemporary scene. He is not a new house producer who happened to find success under a fresh alias, but an artist with almost two decades of professional experience who managed to abandon his own successful musical formula and build a second international career almost from scratch.
