Frustrating music critics since 2002, RjD2 is nearly impossible to place neatly within a genre. His cut-and-paste masterpieces leap quickly from hip-hop to electronic to soul and back again. Nonetheless, RjD2 has become a superstar DJ with one of music’s most diverse fan-bases.
Beginning his career in Cleveland, Ohio, RjD2 insists that his hometown scene was small, but vibrant, though Cleveland is certainly not the hip-hop capital of the world. But, as RjD2 said, “You’ve got to realize, after ‘Rapper’s Delight’ [the first rap song to be played on mainstream radio], there were basically people rapping everywhere in America.”
It is his intricate and unique sampling technique for which RjD2 has become most famous. However, before he was a solo artist, RjD2 worked behind the scenes as a DJ for the Columbus, Ohio group rap group MHz. Quickly, though, his beats became too complicated and busy to rap over, and he began to realize the potential for a new format. “There were times when I would submit things ... which, in hindsight, they [rappers] would turn down because it was too complex,” he said. Soon, he was a solo DJ with no rapper, one of the first of his kind.
With the advent of bling-obsessed, mainstream “radio rap,” RjD2 found his audience in those who were tired of the superficiality. “I had several conversations with people, they would say to you, ‘Oh, I love rap music, but I just don’t like listening to people rapping anymore. I just want to hear the beats.’ I think there were a lot of people that had been feeling it but it was very niche market,” he said. Luckily, RjD2 was there to fill that niche.
His first solo album, 2002’s Deadringer, was met with unexpected success. “I was trying to make a record that was an instrumental record that appealed to people who didn’t necessarily listen to instrumental music, people who were more immersed in rap music,” RjD2 said. A soulful blend of hip-hop elements with samples from every genre, his music gained a large following and has been labeled everything from alternative to hip-hop to electronic, and RjD2 enjoys defying classification.
“I’d say it’s whatever you want it to be. People can call it whatever they want and that’s completely their right,” he claimed. What does remain consistent—from the moody, hip-hop heavy Deadringer to the rock-poppy album The Third Hand—is the unique and intricate process by which the songs are constructed: “My first goal is a groove, a riff. Everything builds out from there. When I work on a record, I’ll build a bunch of different drum programs with all kinds of tempos and all kinds of sounds and feels... then I find a sample or something for I’m roughly shooting for. Then I go through these drum programs and see if I can find something that fits [the sample]... everything else from there is the easier part”.
Despite his commitment to this rigid process, RjD2’s albums are each unique. His most recent, The Third Hand, was scrutinized by critics who claimed it lacked any hint of RjD2’s hip-hop roots and was purely a pop album. The Third Hand was RjD2’s first attempt at live instrumentals and vocals, most of which he performs himself in lieu of sampled harmonies. RjD2, though, points out that the song construction is consistent with his earlier work and still reflects his background. “I mean for me,” he said, the writing is “the exact same process I’ve used to make everything, speaking on a technical level.” He continues, “95 percent of the drums are sampled off records and chopped up and programmed and they are in a 4/4 backbeat arrangement, and usually they’re loud as shit.”
RjD2 is currently focused on his tour, which includes a live band as well as turn tables. On earlier tours he performed alone, doing the same playlist every night. Though surely entertaining for the audience, RjD2 himself admits that touring had been a bit boring in the past. “A perfect show just meant no mistakes. Any one show was essentially the exact same as another. The addition of a live band ups the chance of mistakes, but it also makes live shows more interesting,” he said.
At his New York show at the Bowery Ballroom on May 2, RjD2 revealed a few new surprises, providing scoring for a looped film including clips from television and film. RjD2 and his band performed a faithful cover of the Super Mario theme song while a large screen displayed RjD2’s hands moving swiftly across the turntables. Whether eschewing genres, mystifying with ludicrously complex beats, or surprising audiences at his shows, RjD2 always keeps fans guessing.