Multi-platinum music icons and dancehall ambassadors, MAJOR LAZER are celebrating the release of their new GYALGEBRA mixtape with a Miami Art Week block party benefiting Hurricane Melissa relief efforts in Jamaica on Thursday, Dec. 4
The GYALGEBRA release party happens from 6pm to 2am in the parking lot at Coyo Taco, 2320 NW 2nd Avenue in Wynwood, with all proceeds from ticket and merch sales going towards the American Friends of Jamaica and global crisis response organization CORE’s Hurricane Melissa relief efforts in Jamaica.
The evening will feature live sets from Major Lazer Soundsystem along with special guests and friends of Major Lazer, including a rare appearance from Miami legend DJ Chipman (w ho features on GYALGEBRA standout “Jump & Twist”).
GYALGEBRA, Major Lazer’s first self-contained music project in five years and its first release with new, UK-based vocalist America Foster, was released Friday, Nov. 21 via Mad Decent/BECAUSE. The project’s nine tracks were recorded between Jamaica, where Diplo and co-founder Switch originally formed Major Lazer in 2008, and Miami, homebase of Major Lazer’s Walshy Fire and Ape Drums.
While plans had been in place for months to celebrate the release of GYALGEBRA with a Miami Art Week block party, Hurricane Melissa and its devastating impact on Jamaica inspired the group to take action. Diplo visited Treasure Beach in the hard-hit western parish of St Elizabeth in November with volunteers from CORE and the St Elizabeth-based BREDS Foundation, delivering food and water to families affected by the storm, and witnessing the devastation first-hand.
“Jamaica has been at the heart of everything for me,” Diplo said. “It’s shaped who I am and how I see the world. Even now, after so much loss, that same energy still shines. Seeing the destruction from Hurricane Melissa has been horrible. Entire communities are rebuilding from nothing, and they need our help.”
RETURN TO COACHELLA AFTER 10 YEARS
Fans can expect to see more Major Lazer soon as the group embarks on tour dates in the new year including a return to Coachella — ten years after the group’s last appearance in the desert — on April 12 and 19, 2026. The group also returns to Miami for a headlining set at Ultra Music Festival in March.
GYALGEBRA kicks off Major Lazer’s highly-anticipated new chapter with the official debut of Major Lazer “First Lady” America Foster featuring on five tracks including lead single “BRUK DOWN” (alongside Parris Goebel and SadBoi) and the ‘90s dancehall-inspired solo showcase “Peppa Pot.”
Recorded largely in Jamaica at Diplo’s new studio sanctuary, Pompey, GYALGEBRA is a return to the outsider dancehall energy and unpredictable genre mash-ups of the group’s upstart early days, when anthems like “Pon De Floor” and “Watch Out For This (Bumaye)” literally ran the world. Across its nine tracks, GYALGEBRA lays the blueprint for a new era of Major Lazer — one in which the group centers America Foster’s considerable vocal talents, while remaining as collaborative, musically unpredictable, and stylistically ravenous as ever.
Guest features on GYALGEBRA include Dominican iconoclast, Tokischa, elusive Miami icon, DJ Chipman, Toronto it-girl, SadBoi, New Zealand-born choreographer-turned-artist, Parris Goebel, Jamaican dancehall stalwart Busy Signal, Trinidad & Tobago soca legend Bunji Garlin, zess queen Lady Lava and Amsterdam-based DJ/producer Kybba. Dancehall, drill, shatta, zess, dembow, soca, bouyon, Miami jook and Funk carioca are a few of the genres and inspirations covered on the project.