Thomas Wesley Pentz — or as most know him, Diplo — has been making a huge impact in popular music lately whether you have realized it or not. Though Diplo is not new to music at all, it seems that his time has finally come.

Born in Tupelo, Mississippi but raised mostly in Florida, Diplo spent his childhood working alongside his father in his bait shop before going to college to study film. In the midst of shuffling between Florida colleges Diplo spent some time in Japan to experience a different daily life. While abroad he sent Will Ashton, founder of Big Dada Records, a demo and was signed. From there he moved back to the states and graduated from Temple University. Upon graduating, Diplo worked as an after-school mentor among other jobs before releasing his first album Florida in 2004 and he has been on the rise since.

Diplo eventually went to gain great success as a producer and start his own record label, Mad Decent, form dancehall trio Major Lazer and become the world's 12th highest paid DJ according to Forbes. Though he's been a favorite among fans of electronic and dance music for years Diplo is now making his big break into the mainstream.

In 2013 Diplo partnered with Skrillex and together they became Jack U. Jack U came seemingly out of nowhere at Miami's Ultra music festival in 2014 and have since been topping the charts and bringing electronic music to the forefront of music. In September of 2014 the duo paired with Kiezsa for "Take U There," then again in 2015 they paired with Justin Bieber for the massive track "Where Are U Now."

Speaking of Justin Bieber, "Where Are U Now" was not Diplo's first interaction with him (aside from bailing him out of a Miami jail in 2013). Diplo did some production on Bieber's 2013 album Journals, so before Jack U came to fruition or Major Lazer made their way onto Billboard, Diplo was already making his mark in popular music.

In that same year Diplo dropped his own EP, Revolution. Revolution got everyone "expressing themselves," as he would say and reached number eighteen on iTunes and remained there for over a week, not an easy feat for DJs.

All this has lead us up to Diplo's biggest year yet. On March 2nd Diplo, Jillionaire and Walshy Fire (aka Major Lazer) dropped "Lean On" featuring DJ Snake and MO. "Lean On" was a huge success reaching number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in countries across the globe; the track then went on to be Spotify's most streamed song ever with 526 million streams. And it looks like his year just keeps getting better: just last week, on Nov. 22, Diplo won an American Music Award for collaboration of the year with Skrillex and Bieber for "Where Are U Now," going to show just how wide spread electronic and dance music is becoming. Even though we've seen great work from Diplo I have a feeling he is only just getting started.