Two Diplo releases, not one
A Dutch headline from August 24, 2015, announced that Diplo was continuing his hot streak with a new video and single. The underlying FunX report actually refers to two distinct records: the music video for “Set Me Free,” featuring LIZ, and a collaboration with Canadian producer Sleepy Tom.
The page calls the second song “Be Right Here.” That title is wrong. Diplo and Sleepy Tom released “Be Right There,” built around material associated with Jade’s 1992 R&B hit “Don’t Walk Away.” The typo is small enough to survive casual retelling but large enough to create a nonexistent Diplo title in search indexes.
The dates also need separating. “Set Me Free” had already received an official digital release from Mad Decent on April 21, 2015, as Diplo’s Bandcamp catalog confirms. Its official video appeared on August 21. “Be Right There” was premiered and discussed that same week, then reached commercial services as a single on August 28, according to Apple Music.
Nothing in that chronology establishes an unauthorized leak. Both tracks were formally distributed through Diplo’s ecosystem, and “Set Me Free” remains available through his official artist channel.
“Set Me Free” before the video
“Set Me Free” pairs Diplo with Los Angeles singer-songwriter LIZ, whose bright, precise voice rides a fast electronic arrangement. The song’s legal credits list Thomas Wesley Pentz, Elizabeth Nicole Abrams, Jimmy Harry, Tim James, Joshua Chasez and Philip Meckseper as writers. The MusicBrainz release record identifies the release as official, assigns it Mad Decent catalog number MAD393 and preserves the April date.
That April release is why calling the August clip a “new single” would be misleading. What was new in August was the visual campaign. Diplo’s official “Set Me Free” video, posted August 21, explicitly identifies LIZ and says it was presented by Bud Light.
The sponsorship is not incidental. The video sells a fantasy of electronic music traveling outward from the producer’s studio into an international chain of parties. Diplo appears as both worker and brand: a person at a console, a touring celebrity and the organizing intelligence behind a global spectacle.
A contemporary Vice report described that journey as moving from the studio to dance floors in cities including Shanghai, Rio and Mexico City. The result functions simultaneously as music video, artist mythology and advertisement.
Hearing “Set Me Free” clearly
The record itself moves with a considerably harder edge than Diplo’s biggest crossover hits from that summer. Rapid percussion and sharply wound synth figures surround LIZ’s clipped phrases. The central hook behaves almost like a command used to trigger the next rhythmic cycle.
This is musical interpretation rather than a documented production statement, but the arrangement’s physical logic is plain. It prioritizes impact, repetition and forward motion over harmonic development. LIZ’s voice supplies the human brightness that keeps the track from becoming a purely functional festival tool.
At the same time, her visual role is less dominant than the feature credit might suggest. The video’s narrative centers Diplo’s mobility and the spectacle around him. That imbalance reflects a recurring feature of producer-led EDM: the vocalist can be essential to a record’s identity while remaining secondary in its public imagery.
The song never became a major chart hit. Its place in Diplo’s story is better understood through the video and through the relentless volume of his 2015 output, rather than through a conventional singles-chart breakthrough.
The actual new single: “Be Right There”
“Be Right There” had a more consequential commercial life. Exclaim’s August 21 report identified the collaboration correctly and noted that it put familiar Jade-derived vocal material inside an EDM framework of builds and heavy beats. The finished single credits Diplo and Sleepy Tom as producers and programmers, with Priscilla Renea—now professionally known as Muni Long—performing the vocal.
Renea was not listed in the display artist credit, a common but increasingly scrutinized practice in dance music. Her voice is nonetheless central. The song would not have the same R&B memory or emotional continuity without it.
The composition credits reflect the relationship to “Don’t Walk Away.” Shazam’s credit page names Thomas Wesley Pentz, Cameron Thomas Tatham, Vassal Benford and Ronald Spearman. Benford and Spearman were writers of the earlier Jade song. Contemporary reports often called the new recording a sample; more precisely, it reuses recognizable lyrics and melodic material while setting them in newly produced dance music.
Sleepy Tom is Cameron Tatham, then an emerging Vancouver producer. His presence makes “Be Right There” a genuine co-production rather than simply a Diplo solo record with an extra name attached. The programming credit shared by both producers supports that description.
From recycled R&B to a British hit
The track’s strategy was exceptionally suited to the mid-2010s. It offered the instant familiarity of an early-1990s hook, a polished house pulse and the reputational force of Diplo, whose profile had surged through Major Lazer’s “Lean On” and Jack Ü’s Justin Bieber collaboration “Where Are Ü Now.”
Its success came after the August news cycle. The Official Charts archive records a number-three peak in Britain, 26 weeks in the Top 100 and a number-two peak on the dance chart. Those are not the statistics of a disposable side release. “Be Right There” became one of Diplo’s most durable hits under his own name during that period.
A December assessment in the Santa Barbara Independent recognized the combination of Jade’s material with new bass, tempo and drops. The song’s appeal depended on two audiences hearing different kinds of familiarity: older listeners could recognize the R&B source, while younger dance listeners could experience the hook through contemporary festival and radio production.
That process raises authorship questions, but the surviving credits do acknowledge the earlier composition. It is not an anonymous appropriation in the metadata. The more conspicuous omission was Renea’s from the front-facing feature line, even though the database credits preserve her performance.
Why Diplo seemed omnipresent in 2015
The FunX article opens by mentioning “Where Are Ü Now” and “Lean On.” That context explains its breathless tone. Diplo was operating through several overlapping identities: solo producer, Major Lazer leader, half of Jack Ü, label founder and collaborator-for-hire. A video and a new co-production arriving in one week seemed less like a special campaign than the normal speed of his operation.
That ubiquity can distort catalog history. Records get grouped under the most famous participant; feature singers recede; premieres are remembered as releases; and a typo such as “Be Right Here” is replicated as fact. Reconstructing the week shows a more orderly sequence beneath the apparent rush.
“Set Me Free” was an April single receiving a sponsored video on August 21. “Be Right There” was unveiled around the same date and officially released on August 28. The FunX report landed between those events on August 24.
The corrected legacy
The two songs illuminate different sides of Diplo’s 2015 practice. “Set Me Free” is fast, abrasive and attached to a video that dramatizes the producer’s international brand. “Be Right There” is smoother and more radio-ready, using an R&B composition and an unbilled lead vocal to create a genuine crossover hit.
Only the first supplied the video embedded by the historical article; only the second became the major British chart success. Neither was called “Be Right Here,” and neither needs to be recovered through unofficial audio.
The correction does more than tidy a title. It restores LIZ, Sleepy Tom and Priscilla Renea to a story easily reduced to one famous producer’s momentum—and reveals how Diplo’s apparent omnipresence was built from many distinct collaborators, releases and forms of authorship.