Today, November 10, marks Diplo’s 38th birthday. To celebrate the iconic producer, we’ve dug up his first-ever release: a jazzy, instrumental hip-hop album called Sound and Fury dating all the way back to 2003.

Before Diplo was Diplo, he was Diplodocus, a recent college grad and an aspiring DJ who achieved marginal success by throwing parties under the name “Hooked on Holletronix” with his peer DJ Low Budget. He put out several promo CDs as a budding artist (as was the norm at the time), including Sound & Fury, which came out in 2003.

Jazzy elements appear quite frequently in the mixtape, in addition to heavy bass guitar and electric guitar, highlighting Diplo’s classic influences at this time. His work eventually found its way into the right hands, leading Diplo to link up with MIA in the years that followed. The pair created the mega hit “Paper Planes,” the impact of which forever cemented Diplo as a reputable force in the production world, initiating his swift ascension to the top of the music industry.

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