Diamanté Blackmon, aka Carnage, has been a prominent force in trap- and hip-hop-flavored EDM for more than a decade, and he’s been anchoring some of the heaviest parties at Marquee on the Strip for half that long.
Now, he has moved his Vegas residency to XS, and things have changed. The pandemic inspired the Guatemalan-born artist to alter both his lifestyle—he dropped around 100 pounds—and his musical direction. When he bumps a deep-house set like back in the day when he got his start in Ibiza, he’s not Carnage. He’s Gordo, and that’s how he closed last month’s Art of the Wild weekend at Wynn, punching a hole in XS during the La Selva party.
“It was crazy,” he says. “There was a lot of talk about La Selva with Dubfire being one of the best parties of the weekend. There was a great energy and people were there to party, and it was an honor to play it.”
When he returns on April 8, it’ll be for a Carnage set. He said he lets the Wynn Nightlife team call the shots regarding what kind of show he brings to the club, and he delivers the goods.
Carnage has lived in Las Vegas for much of the past five years—he moved to Hawaii during the pandemic but still has a home here—so he understands how the music and nightlife landscape has evolved in recent years. He says he knew the sounds of Gordo could also work in Vegas, but it went deeper than that. It was just time.
“How much loud, obnoxious music can I force down people’s throats every day for a decade?” he jokes, explaining that he loves the flexibility the two identities provide. “If you see Carnage on the flyer, you know you’re getting all the genres and the big combinations. If it’s Gordo, it’s the real deal, real underground house sh*t.”
There’s plenty of new Gordo music on the way following December’s release of single “Eenie Weenie,” including a collaboration with the Martinez Brothers. He’ll be touring North America all summer, and he’s plotting an international trek.
“I’m just putting my money where my mouth is, really trying to make a statement with this,” he says.
CARNAGE April 8, 10:30 p.m., $35-$65+. XS Nightclub, 702-770-7300, wynnsocial.com.
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