Diddy, Guy Gerber, Steve Aoki, Chad Hurley at IMS Engage: Where Worlds Collide and Gates Open

When asked about the origins of 11:11, the name for the much-ballyhooed collaboration between Sean P. Diddy Combs and Israeli DJ/producer Guy Gerber, the ordinarily loquacious entrepreneur was uncharacteristically reticent.

Some things are better left a mystery, he said, though his partner admitted the name comes from a date when two worlds collide and open a gate to another dimension.

The occasion was series of one-on-one conversations held in connection with the day long IMS Engage at the W Hotel in Hollywood, crawling with EDM types for the event, a spin-off of the Ibiza International Music Summit. Other pairings included David Lynch and Moby, moderator Pete Tong and Giorgio Moroder, Steve Aoki and YouTube founder Chad Hurley and Junkie XL and Hans Zimmer

Explaining the unlikely partnership between them, the scholarly, bearded Gerber described being summoned to New York to make music together by Diddy. He played me a track from my first album for inspiration, laughs the 27-year-old founder of pioneering record labels Supplement Facts and Rumours. And I gave him a big hug.

Diddy traced his own fascination with this kind of music to a trip to Ibizas famed DC10 Club, his own collaborations with Nellee Hooper and Felix da Housecat, and dancing on the dirt floors of to DJ Junior Vasquez at N.Y.C. clubs like the Sound Factory and Paradise Garage.

He went on to contrast his next level musical approach to the experience of going to his grandmothers Baptist church, where you dont know whats going to happen (You could get visited by the Holy Ghost, he joked) to the regimentation of the Catholic Church where he was brought up.

Its all about the spiritual aspect of this music, he says. Playing from the heart and experiencing true emotions.

I am always looking for DJ/producers without a set format, who arent afraid to clear the dance floor, who are fearless. I thought it would be cool to work with Guy.

I want to push peoples buttons, rather than make them love me, adds Gerber. I try to give the listener respect. Working with P. Diddy, he understood my music better than I did.

Diddy claims he has no commercial hopes for the album, which should be out for July, and even intends to give it away.

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Diddy, Guy Gerber, Steve Aoki, Chad Hurley at IMS Engage: Where Worlds Collide and Gates Open

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