The small town of Cambridge, New Zealand is an unlikely place to call home for a revolutionary rapper, but the story and values of Diaz Grimm are unusual in the most honest way.
Beginning as a DJ in the local Hamilton scene, Diaz combines energetic DJ sets with his own original music to create a boombastic one man stage show.
In 2015, Diaz Grimm released his debut album 'Osiris', a soundtrack to the end of the world. A post-apocalyptic sonic journey that resonated with audiences and critics alike, the success of Osiris saw Diaz nominated for Best Urban/Hip-Hop Album at the New Zealand Music Awards that year. The album topped the NZ iTunes hiphop charts, reached the official NZ Top 20 album charts and became the most upvoted self-posted album in the history of the Reddit/hiphopheads forum.
Following the success of the album Diaz was invited to go on a ten show nationwide tour with local superstars Six60 and then in 2016 became the first self-managed, unsigned artist from New Zealand to ever be invited to play SXSW.
Diaz made it to Austin, Texas for SXSW2016 where he began a three month journey alone around America hoping to build his knowledge and network in the music industry. During the trip, Grimm met the likes of Chance The Rapper, A$AP Rocky, Alan Kingdom and was invited to meet with major hiphop blog, HotNewHxipHop.
Diaz recently worked on his latest single ‘Foreigners’ with Grammy award winning producer and songwriter Mike Elizondo (Prod. of Eminem’s ‘Real Slim Shady’, 50 cent’s ‘In Da Club’ & The Games ‘How We Do’).
‘Foreigners’ debuted at no. 16 on the NZ singles charts (The only unsigned, self managed artist in the charts) and became the only kiwi on the front page of the NZTop40.co.nz the week of release.
Diaz will be heading out on his last NZ tour in October this year before making the move to Toronto to set up camp late December.
