By Catherine Skipp

Yesterday, the Dream Hotel was home to the Chicken & Beer event hosted by Feel Up Records presenting The Jillionaire, Walshy Fire, The Partysquad and more as well as *Special Unannounced Guests. This may have seemed like just another ordinary rooftop pool party in South Beach except for the fact that two of the headliners made up two-thirds of the electronic music project, Major Lazer. The missing third was none other than Diplo, a name everyone in the music industry knows and is notorious for throwing secret shows around Miami during the WMC week. With just a free RSVP on the Feel Up Records site, I headed to the Dream hotel with this in mind and luckily I did not leave unfulfilled.

Without a big headlining name, I find pool parties to be lack luster. Only a select few actually go in the pool, even fewer are dancing, and most are looking to be seen while cradling the border between just another attendee and being a part of a table with an endless supply of free drinks. Luckily, the Chicken & Beer event turned up when the Mad Decent crew threw down their classic mix of reggae, hip-hop, and electronic beats. And then, the surprise guest arrived. Before anyone knew it Diplo was spinning the tracks and the crowd went wild. The next hour included music that you couldn’t not dance to, selfies, and girl’s straddling the lagoon that surrounds the DJ booth at the Dream hotel.  Let’s just say, the other rooftops who were paying an absurd amount of money for some no-name DJs were pretty jealous.