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22 December 2023
THE FOLLOWING INTERVIEW WITH RJD2 WAS CONDUCTED IN MARCH 2004, AND WAS PRINTED IN OUR SPRING \'O4 ISSUE. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN PURCHASING A COPY OF THE MAGAZINE, CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE.
AS IF RELEASING A DEBUT ALBUM THAT KNOCKED YOU ON YOUR ASS WASN’T ENOUGH, PHILADELPHIA-BASED PRODUCER RJD2 SPENT THE LAST FEW YEARS KEEPING YOU FLOORED WITH PRODUCTION AND REMIXES FOR HIP-HOP, TRIP-HOP, AND ROCK ACTS. HE’S ABOUT TO DO IT AGAIN WITH AN INTENSELY ORIGINAL NEW ALBUM, SINCE WE LAST SPOKE, PUTTING HIMSELF ON A NEW CREATIVE PATH AND PUTTING YOU BACK ON THE FLOOR, LIKE HE HAD YOU BEFORE. VINNIE BAGGADONUTS GETS THE LOW-DOWN FROM ONE OF DEFINITIVE JUX’S MOST CREATIVE BEAT ASSASSINS.
Vinnie Baggadonuts: So, where in Europe were you exactly?
Rjd2: Germany, France, and the UK.
VB: Were you touring for the new record?
R: Nah. I was doing press. It was hell. After a week of talking about myself, I feel like I don’t even know myself anymore. It’s really dementing.
Both: (laugh)
VB: And now I got you on the phone, trying to find out more about you.
R: (laughs) It all came full circle-- it was me talking about myself, and now I’m talking about myself again.
VB: What was doing press over there like?
R: It was cool. I dug eating different foods and stuff like that. I think that when you travel to Europe, you either start to like countries you already like even more, or you start to hate things about them. I know that’s really ignorant to say, but here’s the thing: 99% of the time I love traveling into Europe. But there was one specific country that gave me the two beefs that I have. One of them is that people want to berate me for being an American.
VB: Really?
R: They want to talk to me about how stupid Americans are, and I don’t mind. American culture, in conversation, starts as this third party. But after a while, it moves away from being a third party, and they start projecting their frustrations on me, talking to me about how I’m ignorant because I don’t know what’s going on at Guantanamo Bay. Then it gets exhausting.
VB: I wouldn’t expect that kind of behavior there.
R: I don’t know. It’s not all Europeans. Just some people from this one country who seemed very self-righteous. They have a hard time understanding how you can live in America and be, essentially, totally apathetic about what’s going on politically. You know what I mean?
VB: Yeah. They think you represent your leaders.
R: Yeah! They’re like, \"You guys elected Bush. If you didn’t want him, why aren’t you rioting in the streets?\" Well, some people are. (laughs)
VB: Were there any positive experiences from it?
R: Oh, yeah. The response has been good about the new record, so that made it cool. We have a new distributor in Europe, too, so I was just getting to know them. I bought some records, and had a lot of really good meals.
Both: (laugh)
VB: So how are you feeling about the record?
R: Definitely nervous. I mean, I’m happy with the record, but I don’t know if it’s gonna piss people off, or if they’re really gonna like it.
VB: (laughs) Why would it piss people off?
R: I don’t know if you’ve heard it or not....
VB: I heard \"Clean Living\" off of Definitive Jux Presents: Volume III, but I haven’t heard the rest of it.
R: Well, there’s singing on it. No rapping at all. It’s more melodic. People in Europe say it doesn’t sound anything like hip-hop. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s some weirdo art-fag shit, but....
Both: (laugh)
R: You know how they have that series Music For Dummies?
VB: Yeah.
R: I feel like Dead Ringer was Instrumental Hip-Hop For Dummies.
Both: (laugh)
R: Seriously. I feel like a lot of the approach that went into it was me trying to make an instrumental hip-hop record that would appeal to your average rap fan. And this record is not that at all.
VB: It’s more straight-up composing? Like, you’re just trying to make some music, and not a specific kind of music?
R: Yeah. I was more concerned with melodies, songs, instrumentation... shit like that. I feel like it’s light years beyond Dead Ringer. It’s shorter, more to the point. It doesn’t have skits that you don’t need. It doesn’t have a bunch of bullshit. It doesn’t have rap songs that are no good. Personally, I feel good about it. But I also think it’s gonna polarize people. They’re either gonna love it or hate it. This is the first time I made a record without worrying about how it was going to be perceived. I wasn’t attempting to fit into or defy any particular classification.
VB: Was it a natural progression for you to bring in singers and such?
R: Ummm... (laughs) I’m not going to talk about the instrumentation too much if you haven’t heard it. It’s hard to describe. In terms of the recording process, though, I did do two songs with MCs. I recorded 20 songs for this record, and there were only a few things I was setting out to do with it. One is, I wanted to record as much as possible, then can some of the material to figure out what worked best as an album. The other thing I set out to do was... well, there was this period where I was picking up things like The Strokes and The White Stripes, when there was talk about how this \"revival of rock\" was going on. I liked those records, but none of them were exactly what I expected. A few of them ended up being close, but I was expecting the second coming of Led Zeppelin, you know? Music with balls that was melodic and had good instrumentation, but didn’t sound candy-ass. And nothing was doing that. So, in the back of my head, I was like, \"Maybe I’ll just make a record that sounds like what I want these rock records to sound like.\" So that was in the back of my head for a minute. And, to a point, it was a relief. It got my mind off of, \"Oh, am I gonna just make another Dead Ringer?\" But then, to a point, I’d done four or five songs that had this rocky feel to them, and that’s when I realized it was becoming more of a limitation. So, that’s when I started recording for fun.
VB: When people hear it, and you maybe don’t get the reaction you were expecting, do you feel like you need to show them all that goes into it? Like, the technical process, and how much of you goes into it?
R: Sometimes. Sometimes I’ll see reviews that were like, \"Dead Ringer is just an album full of beats. There are just 15 beats on this record.\" And I start to feel like, \"Oh, man. I mean, I know it’s not your typical verse-chorus-verse song, but it’s more than just a beat.\" I don’t get too bent out of shape about it.
VB: Do you feel like it’d be something worth showing people somehow?
R: In a way, and in a way not. If something is a pretty exceptional feat production-wise, I feel like people pick it up. Let’s take 3 Feet High and Rising by De La Soul. It’s a really obvious example. Most people aren’t going to mistake that for a fluke. They can hear the amount of time and energy that went into making that record.
VB: Yeah.
R: I think it’s more interesting for the process to be ambiguous. That’s how I feel about my favorite recordings. Of course there’s a part of me that wants to know everything about the process, you know? Like, how it was engineered, what kind of drum machine they used, blah, blah, blah. But in my experience, the more you find out about, the less interesting it becomes. There’s something about demystifying a recording that bugs me. I don’t want a picture of my studio on a record. It kills the mystique for me when I see a picture of my favorite producer’s studio.
VB: Yeah. I just asked because the more I listen to Dead Ringer, the more complex it seems to me. I feel like so much went into it. But when I play it for people who might not be into hip-hop, or who might not ever have heard of you, part of me gets frustrated when they don’t feel the same about it. I want to be like, \"Dude, do you understand what went into this? Do you understand how complex this shit is?\"
R: Thanks, man.
VB: I always wonder about that from your perspective as a musician. I wonder if you ever want to grab people and be like, \"Yo, motherfucker! Do you understand how much work I put into this?\"
R: (laughs) No, no. I’d never want to do that. I could understand how some people might feel that way, but I’d rather have respect from a smaller group of people. For instance, (laughs) if you listen to someone like Timbaland or Lil\' John, and how they filter their bass frequencies, it’s really hard to figure out. But it’s a thing that will fly over the head of your average club-going listener. If you listen to a record through headphones a few times-- like \"Cry Me A River\", for example-- you pick up on a lot of things that went into that recording. And I would rather have a small number of people who respect what I do and pick up on things like that.
VB: So, are you gonna tour for the record?
R: Yeah.
VB: Are you gonna try and bring along some of the people who sung on the record?
R: Actually, the record is all me, except one song where I had someone sing one of the parts. Other than that, I did all of the instrumentation.
VB: That’s cool.
R: Who knows. You might hate it. (laughs)
VB: Nah. When I got Definitive Jux III and heard \"Clean Living\", I put it on loop. That tune is so fucking catchy. I’m fired up to hear the whole record.
R: If you’re really curious to hear it, you could probably get a downloaded copy of it.
VB: How do you feel about downloading?
R: Honestly, the only thing I’m really feeling about downloading right now is I’m jealous of people like the Neptunes and Eminem, who are at such a huge level that they can afford not to send their records to press, so their albums don’t get leaked until five days before they’re released. It’s not a money thing. We’ve gone over and over this downloading thing because, for instance, in England, people don’t listen to the record if it’s got a promo copy voice-over on it. That’s really hard on us. We’re sending the mail outs for the album, and a lot of those people are saying, \"I’m not even going to listen to this.\" So, we’re dealing with this issue where, to get the proper press response you need there, you have to send out clean copies of the album. We’re still two months away from the release date. And we’re having problems because, if it gets leaked once over there, then a clean copy is out. It doesn’t matter where it gets leaked from--
VB: --because it winds up everywhere.
R: Yeah. So, when I was in Europe, this is one of the things I was doing-- having meetings with people, orchestrating how this thing was gonna get rolled out over there. Ultimately, when it comes down to it, if nobody’s downloading the record, then nobody’s buying the record. And if a lot of people are downloading the record, at least in most examples, the record is also being purchased. Now, you don’t know who’s doing what, but if you had to make an educated guess, you could probably guess that downloading helps sales rather than hurts them.
VB: Do you think it helps people like you, who might not be Eminem or the Neptunes, even more so?
R: Of course. And even if you sell less records, what about your live shows? People who downloaded the record are coming to the shows.
VB: Yeah.
R: Really, the only bummer for me is, on an artistic level, it’s completely obliterated the experience of a release date. Back in the day, nobody would hear the record until it came out. And that day, it was like-- BOOM!-- everyone would get it. And you’d hear it while seeing the artwork. If you’re really into it, you’re gonna read the liner notes. These are all things I do with records. It’s just a general appreciation. I think you have a better chance of enjoying it as a piece of art when you can see the cover, read the liner notes, and hear the whole thing without a fuckin’ voice-over.
VB: I’ll download certain things. But if I know I’m gonna get the record, I don’t want to hear any of it.
R: I’m the same way. I bought the Kanye West record because I was like, \"Well, I’m probably gonna like this record. And even if the record sucks, I know he put a lot of work into it, and I’ll be able to appreciate it on a technical level.\" It was a risk I was willing to take. The biggest danger of downloading, for me, is that I think it’s going to change the way music is sold and formatted. I think that the concept of an album might be a potential victim. I mean, let’s say, hypothetically, five or ten years down the line, they’ve managed to stamp out all the peer-to-peer networking things. Everything’s loosely based on an iTunes type of retail store, where you buy a song for a dollar. Basically, bands are going to race to record hit songs, as opposed to good albums.
VB: Right on. So, when you recorded Since We Last Spoke, you said you were just trying to make good music, and not another Dead Ringer.
R: Yeah.
VB: When you make beats for people now, do you find yourself doing a similar thing-- just making the music how you want it to be, instead of a cut-and-dry, defined hip-hop track?
R: To be honest with you, I don’t know if I can go back to that. There are things that I’ve done that are more typical, normal, 95 BPM. I’m not opposed to using those on a project, but it’s hard for me to get excited to work within those confines now. In terms of doing things for other people, my inspirations right now are things like The Black Mob Group, Avery Johnson, and Daft Punk.
VB: Yeah?
R: Stuff that’s extreme. Or kind of like what Timbaland was when he first came out. When you first heard him, it was a rarity. It wasn’t like anything that was going on in rap. And that’s really what I get out of Daft Punk right now. It has a hip-hop aesthetic-- at least the album Discovery does-- in the way that samples are used on the album. But if anything, it’s masquerading as a disco album. And, to me, that’s cool. I’d rather be doing something different like that.
VB: Well, I think the stuff you do for other people, like the beats you did for Diverse on One A.M.; that stuff stands out. When you hear it, it’s just so different. Like \"Explosive\"... when I first heard that, I about jumped out of my skin.
R: (laughs)
VB: For real, dude. It was like Public Enemy!
R: That’s cool, man. That was a cool thing to do. I got to have my fun with it and do what I wanted, but I was still working at a tempo that a rapper could get away with. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make that kind of music anymore.
VB: What about another Soul Position record?
R: Oh, yeah! I want to do another Soul Position record. We could make it work. He did a double-time song for my album, and it came out incredible. We wouldn’t go in thinking about making it a record that would be, essentially-- not that you’d shoot for this-- but the idiot’s journalistic description of it: \"An album somewhere between Bonecrusher and Jungle Brothers.\"
Both: (laugh)
R: It’d either be really slow, or really fast. There would never be any mid-tempo. From a production standpoint, that would be a fun project.
VB: With the new album done, and this music you have in your head that you want to make, is there anyone you want to work on a project with?
R: Yeah. I mean, I’ve been sending pieces to some people. I don’t want to name any names at this point in case it doesn’t work out. But there are some major label people I’ve been talking to.
VB: And then you can start scoring movies.
Both: (laugh)
VB: So, when you’re making music, is it hard to channel your thoughts or emotions into your medium?
R: Oh, no. In my experience, you’re never gonna express 90% of the emotions that you feel through the course of a day. For me, I have to sit down in the studio and mess around and have fun until I stumble across an emotion or a feeling or a vibe I can identify with. I find that, hold onto it for dear life, and hope that it turns into a song. For me, it’s virtually impossible to say, \"Oh, man. I’m bummed out. I got bills to pay. I got too much debt. Let’s make a song about being bummed out about the bills.\" It doesn’t work like that.
VB: I just wondered if, you know, say you’re working on a song and it has a particular vibe to it. But you personally aren’t feeling that vibe today. I wondered if you have to detach your own emotions so you can complete that track.
R: You hit the nail on the head, man. The way I recorded this record is, I’d be working on a number of things at one time. And, basically, if I was in a certain mood to work on a certain thing, I’d work on that. Sometimes it was even simpler than that. That kind of thing was prevalent throughout the recording of this record. A lot of times I find that producing is like problem solving. It’s very similar to chess, or problem solving video games. Have you ever played Resident Evil?
VB: Yeah.
R: Tomb Raider is a better example. Sometimes you can’t figure a part out. And if you walk away from it and come back later with a fresh perspective, the solution is right there.
VB: Yeah. Like you see that one corner you never tried to jump to before.
R: Yeah. Usually it’s something that’s right under your nose, but you didn’t think about trying it. Music is the same way. I can’t force it. And I think that’s the easy thing to do when you make this sort of cut-and-paste music. If you just want to get the songs done, then you come out with a result that’s not as good as what it could be. The hardest thing is to let it sit. If a song takes two weeks, cool. But if a song takes four months, be patient. That’s the best thing you can do for it.
VB: In The Horror DVD, you talked about adding different elements to your album cuts live, instead of reproducing it as is. When you go out to promote Since We Last Spoke, are you gonna do something similar?
R: Because almost all the songs on the new album have some sort of vocals, I’m gonna try to do remixes for the record so people recognize the acapellas, but maybe not the beat. It’ll work. I think if you make electronic music, the best thing you could do for the live show is record a new album.
VB: Really?
R: Yeah. But that doesn’t make sense, because only really adventurous listeners want to hear something completely new. Most people want to be able to recognize something. So, using acapellas or elements of a beat people recognize with an instrumental they’ve never heard before gives you the best of both worlds.
VB: I got one more thing I want to ask you. You were talking about being in Europe earlier, and how they associated you with the leaders of America and what they were doing throughout the world, like you’re the cause of all the problems and shit. Are you politically active?
R: Yeah. I try and do what I can. I vote. But I’d feel like a hypocrite if I went on and on about politics in all my records or at my gigs just to make money, and then not donate to some political cause. I don’t want to front like I’m some kind of political activist, because I’m not. At the end of the day, I know what’s going on. It’s important to, especially when you’re overseas. But I’m too disillusioned by America to care.
VB: Do you see yourself living in another country down the road?
R: I don’t think another country, but it would be nice to get as far off the grid as possible. Unfortunately, I’m kind of on the IRS\' radar. When you get 1099s, you are. I probably bought a lot of machine guns or a couple of missiles with what I’m going to pay the IRS this year. It sucks.
VB: Do you feel like there’s hope for change?
R: It’s going to come down to this election. Maybe you feel differently, but I feel like the media has changed in the last four years. More and more, I feel like I’m being lied to.
VB: Yeah. I can’t watch that shit.
R: Yeah. I feel like, if Bush wins this election, I don’t know how the whole country can’t feel like something fishy is up.
VB: Yeah. Do you think the people have the ability to confront it if something fishy did happen?
R: I don’t know. I’d like to think so. They say that drug abuse is slowly declining among teenagers in America. So, I’d like to think that Americans are not apathetic because they’re always stoned and playing video games.
Both: (laugh)
READ OUR FIRST INTERVIEW WITH RJD2 HERE.
AS IF RELEASING A DEBUT ALBUM THAT KNOCKED YOU ON YOUR ASS WASN’T ENOUGH, PHILADELPHIA-BASED PRODUCER RJD2 SPENT THE LAST FEW YEARS KEEPING YOU FLOORED WITH PRODUCTION AND REMIXES FOR HIP-HOP, TRIP-HOP, AND ROCK ACTS. HE’S ABOUT TO DO IT AGAIN WITH AN INTENSELY ORIGINAL NEW ALBUM, SINCE WE LAST SPOKE, PUTTING HIMSELF ON A NEW CREATIVE PATH AND PUTTING YOU BACK ON THE FLOOR, LIKE HE HAD YOU BEFORE. VINNIE BAGGADONUTS GETS THE LOW-DOWN FROM ONE OF DEFINITIVE JUX’S MOST CREATIVE BEAT ASSASSINS.
Vinnie Baggadonuts: So, where in Europe were you exactly?
Rjd2: Germany, France, and the UK.
VB: Were you touring for the new record?
R: Nah. I was doing press. It was hell. After a week of talking about myself, I feel like I don’t even know myself anymore. It’s really dementing.
Both: (laugh)
VB: And now I got you on the phone, trying to find out more about you.
R: (laughs) It all came full circle-- it was me talking about myself, and now I’m talking about myself again.
VB: What was doing press over there like?
R: It was cool. I dug eating different foods and stuff like that. I think that when you travel to Europe, you either start to like countries you already like even more, or you start to hate things about them. I know that’s really ignorant to say, but here’s the thing: 99% of the time I love traveling into Europe. But there was one specific country that gave me the two beefs that I have. One of them is that people want to berate me for being an American.
VB: Really?
R: They want to talk to me about how stupid Americans are, and I don’t mind. American culture, in conversation, starts as this third party. But after a while, it moves away from being a third party, and they start projecting their frustrations on me, talking to me about how I’m ignorant because I don’t know what’s going on at Guantanamo Bay. Then it gets exhausting.
VB: I wouldn’t expect that kind of behavior there.
R: I don’t know. It’s not all Europeans. Just some people from this one country who seemed very self-righteous. They have a hard time understanding how you can live in America and be, essentially, totally apathetic about what’s going on politically. You know what I mean?
VB: Yeah. They think you represent your leaders.
R: Yeah! They’re like, \"You guys elected Bush. If you didn’t want him, why aren’t you rioting in the streets?\" Well, some people are. (laughs)
VB: Were there any positive experiences from it?
R: Oh, yeah. The response has been good about the new record, so that made it cool. We have a new distributor in Europe, too, so I was just getting to know them. I bought some records, and had a lot of really good meals.
Both: (laugh)
VB: So how are you feeling about the record?
R: Definitely nervous. I mean, I’m happy with the record, but I don’t know if it’s gonna piss people off, or if they’re really gonna like it.
VB: (laughs) Why would it piss people off?
R: I don’t know if you’ve heard it or not....
VB: I heard \"Clean Living\" off of Definitive Jux Presents: Volume III, but I haven’t heard the rest of it.
R: Well, there’s singing on it. No rapping at all. It’s more melodic. People in Europe say it doesn’t sound anything like hip-hop. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s some weirdo art-fag shit, but....
Both: (laugh)
R: You know how they have that series Music For Dummies?
VB: Yeah.
R: I feel like Dead Ringer was Instrumental Hip-Hop For Dummies.
Both: (laugh)
R: Seriously. I feel like a lot of the approach that went into it was me trying to make an instrumental hip-hop record that would appeal to your average rap fan. And this record is not that at all.
VB: It’s more straight-up composing? Like, you’re just trying to make some music, and not a specific kind of music?
R: Yeah. I was more concerned with melodies, songs, instrumentation... shit like that. I feel like it’s light years beyond Dead Ringer. It’s shorter, more to the point. It doesn’t have skits that you don’t need. It doesn’t have a bunch of bullshit. It doesn’t have rap songs that are no good. Personally, I feel good about it. But I also think it’s gonna polarize people. They’re either gonna love it or hate it. This is the first time I made a record without worrying about how it was going to be perceived. I wasn’t attempting to fit into or defy any particular classification.
VB: Was it a natural progression for you to bring in singers and such?
R: Ummm... (laughs) I’m not going to talk about the instrumentation too much if you haven’t heard it. It’s hard to describe. In terms of the recording process, though, I did do two songs with MCs. I recorded 20 songs for this record, and there were only a few things I was setting out to do with it. One is, I wanted to record as much as possible, then can some of the material to figure out what worked best as an album. The other thing I set out to do was... well, there was this period where I was picking up things like The Strokes and The White Stripes, when there was talk about how this \"revival of rock\" was going on. I liked those records, but none of them were exactly what I expected. A few of them ended up being close, but I was expecting the second coming of Led Zeppelin, you know? Music with balls that was melodic and had good instrumentation, but didn’t sound candy-ass. And nothing was doing that. So, in the back of my head, I was like, \"Maybe I’ll just make a record that sounds like what I want these rock records to sound like.\" So that was in the back of my head for a minute. And, to a point, it was a relief. It got my mind off of, \"Oh, am I gonna just make another Dead Ringer?\" But then, to a point, I’d done four or five songs that had this rocky feel to them, and that’s when I realized it was becoming more of a limitation. So, that’s when I started recording for fun.
VB: When people hear it, and you maybe don’t get the reaction you were expecting, do you feel like you need to show them all that goes into it? Like, the technical process, and how much of you goes into it?
R: Sometimes. Sometimes I’ll see reviews that were like, \"Dead Ringer is just an album full of beats. There are just 15 beats on this record.\" And I start to feel like, \"Oh, man. I mean, I know it’s not your typical verse-chorus-verse song, but it’s more than just a beat.\" I don’t get too bent out of shape about it.
VB: Do you feel like it’d be something worth showing people somehow?
R: In a way, and in a way not. If something is a pretty exceptional feat production-wise, I feel like people pick it up. Let’s take 3 Feet High and Rising by De La Soul. It’s a really obvious example. Most people aren’t going to mistake that for a fluke. They can hear the amount of time and energy that went into making that record.
VB: Yeah.
R: I think it’s more interesting for the process to be ambiguous. That’s how I feel about my favorite recordings. Of course there’s a part of me that wants to know everything about the process, you know? Like, how it was engineered, what kind of drum machine they used, blah, blah, blah. But in my experience, the more you find out about, the less interesting it becomes. There’s something about demystifying a recording that bugs me. I don’t want a picture of my studio on a record. It kills the mystique for me when I see a picture of my favorite producer’s studio.
VB: Yeah. I just asked because the more I listen to Dead Ringer, the more complex it seems to me. I feel like so much went into it. But when I play it for people who might not be into hip-hop, or who might not ever have heard of you, part of me gets frustrated when they don’t feel the same about it. I want to be like, \"Dude, do you understand what went into this? Do you understand how complex this shit is?\"
R: Thanks, man.
VB: I always wonder about that from your perspective as a musician. I wonder if you ever want to grab people and be like, \"Yo, motherfucker! Do you understand how much work I put into this?\"
R: (laughs) No, no. I’d never want to do that. I could understand how some people might feel that way, but I’d rather have respect from a smaller group of people. For instance, (laughs) if you listen to someone like Timbaland or Lil\' John, and how they filter their bass frequencies, it’s really hard to figure out. But it’s a thing that will fly over the head of your average club-going listener. If you listen to a record through headphones a few times-- like \"Cry Me A River\", for example-- you pick up on a lot of things that went into that recording. And I would rather have a small number of people who respect what I do and pick up on things like that.
VB: So, are you gonna tour for the record?
R: Yeah.
VB: Are you gonna try and bring along some of the people who sung on the record?
R: Actually, the record is all me, except one song where I had someone sing one of the parts. Other than that, I did all of the instrumentation.
VB: That’s cool.
R: Who knows. You might hate it. (laughs)
VB: Nah. When I got Definitive Jux III and heard \"Clean Living\", I put it on loop. That tune is so fucking catchy. I’m fired up to hear the whole record.
R: If you’re really curious to hear it, you could probably get a downloaded copy of it.
VB: How do you feel about downloading?
R: Honestly, the only thing I’m really feeling about downloading right now is I’m jealous of people like the Neptunes and Eminem, who are at such a huge level that they can afford not to send their records to press, so their albums don’t get leaked until five days before they’re released. It’s not a money thing. We’ve gone over and over this downloading thing because, for instance, in England, people don’t listen to the record if it’s got a promo copy voice-over on it. That’s really hard on us. We’re sending the mail outs for the album, and a lot of those people are saying, \"I’m not even going to listen to this.\" So, we’re dealing with this issue where, to get the proper press response you need there, you have to send out clean copies of the album. We’re still two months away from the release date. And we’re having problems because, if it gets leaked once over there, then a clean copy is out. It doesn’t matter where it gets leaked from--
VB: --because it winds up everywhere.
R: Yeah. So, when I was in Europe, this is one of the things I was doing-- having meetings with people, orchestrating how this thing was gonna get rolled out over there. Ultimately, when it comes down to it, if nobody’s downloading the record, then nobody’s buying the record. And if a lot of people are downloading the record, at least in most examples, the record is also being purchased. Now, you don’t know who’s doing what, but if you had to make an educated guess, you could probably guess that downloading helps sales rather than hurts them.
VB: Do you think it helps people like you, who might not be Eminem or the Neptunes, even more so?
R: Of course. And even if you sell less records, what about your live shows? People who downloaded the record are coming to the shows.
VB: Yeah.
R: Really, the only bummer for me is, on an artistic level, it’s completely obliterated the experience of a release date. Back in the day, nobody would hear the record until it came out. And that day, it was like-- BOOM!-- everyone would get it. And you’d hear it while seeing the artwork. If you’re really into it, you’re gonna read the liner notes. These are all things I do with records. It’s just a general appreciation. I think you have a better chance of enjoying it as a piece of art when you can see the cover, read the liner notes, and hear the whole thing without a fuckin’ voice-over.
VB: I’ll download certain things. But if I know I’m gonna get the record, I don’t want to hear any of it.
R: I’m the same way. I bought the Kanye West record because I was like, \"Well, I’m probably gonna like this record. And even if the record sucks, I know he put a lot of work into it, and I’ll be able to appreciate it on a technical level.\" It was a risk I was willing to take. The biggest danger of downloading, for me, is that I think it’s going to change the way music is sold and formatted. I think that the concept of an album might be a potential victim. I mean, let’s say, hypothetically, five or ten years down the line, they’ve managed to stamp out all the peer-to-peer networking things. Everything’s loosely based on an iTunes type of retail store, where you buy a song for a dollar. Basically, bands are going to race to record hit songs, as opposed to good albums.
VB: Right on. So, when you recorded Since We Last Spoke, you said you were just trying to make good music, and not another Dead Ringer.
R: Yeah.
VB: When you make beats for people now, do you find yourself doing a similar thing-- just making the music how you want it to be, instead of a cut-and-dry, defined hip-hop track?
R: To be honest with you, I don’t know if I can go back to that. There are things that I’ve done that are more typical, normal, 95 BPM. I’m not opposed to using those on a project, but it’s hard for me to get excited to work within those confines now. In terms of doing things for other people, my inspirations right now are things like The Black Mob Group, Avery Johnson, and Daft Punk.
VB: Yeah?
R: Stuff that’s extreme. Or kind of like what Timbaland was when he first came out. When you first heard him, it was a rarity. It wasn’t like anything that was going on in rap. And that’s really what I get out of Daft Punk right now. It has a hip-hop aesthetic-- at least the album Discovery does-- in the way that samples are used on the album. But if anything, it’s masquerading as a disco album. And, to me, that’s cool. I’d rather be doing something different like that.
VB: Well, I think the stuff you do for other people, like the beats you did for Diverse on One A.M.; that stuff stands out. When you hear it, it’s just so different. Like \"Explosive\"... when I first heard that, I about jumped out of my skin.
R: (laughs)
VB: For real, dude. It was like Public Enemy!
R: That’s cool, man. That was a cool thing to do. I got to have my fun with it and do what I wanted, but I was still working at a tempo that a rapper could get away with. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make that kind of music anymore.
VB: What about another Soul Position record?
R: Oh, yeah! I want to do another Soul Position record. We could make it work. He did a double-time song for my album, and it came out incredible. We wouldn’t go in thinking about making it a record that would be, essentially-- not that you’d shoot for this-- but the idiot’s journalistic description of it: \"An album somewhere between Bonecrusher and Jungle Brothers.\"
Both: (laugh)
R: It’d either be really slow, or really fast. There would never be any mid-tempo. From a production standpoint, that would be a fun project.
VB: With the new album done, and this music you have in your head that you want to make, is there anyone you want to work on a project with?
R: Yeah. I mean, I’ve been sending pieces to some people. I don’t want to name any names at this point in case it doesn’t work out. But there are some major label people I’ve been talking to.
VB: And then you can start scoring movies.
Both: (laugh)
VB: So, when you’re making music, is it hard to channel your thoughts or emotions into your medium?
R: Oh, no. In my experience, you’re never gonna express 90% of the emotions that you feel through the course of a day. For me, I have to sit down in the studio and mess around and have fun until I stumble across an emotion or a feeling or a vibe I can identify with. I find that, hold onto it for dear life, and hope that it turns into a song. For me, it’s virtually impossible to say, \"Oh, man. I’m bummed out. I got bills to pay. I got too much debt. Let’s make a song about being bummed out about the bills.\" It doesn’t work like that.
VB: I just wondered if, you know, say you’re working on a song and it has a particular vibe to it. But you personally aren’t feeling that vibe today. I wondered if you have to detach your own emotions so you can complete that track.
R: You hit the nail on the head, man. The way I recorded this record is, I’d be working on a number of things at one time. And, basically, if I was in a certain mood to work on a certain thing, I’d work on that. Sometimes it was even simpler than that. That kind of thing was prevalent throughout the recording of this record. A lot of times I find that producing is like problem solving. It’s very similar to chess, or problem solving video games. Have you ever played Resident Evil?
VB: Yeah.
R: Tomb Raider is a better example. Sometimes you can’t figure a part out. And if you walk away from it and come back later with a fresh perspective, the solution is right there.
VB: Yeah. Like you see that one corner you never tried to jump to before.
R: Yeah. Usually it’s something that’s right under your nose, but you didn’t think about trying it. Music is the same way. I can’t force it. And I think that’s the easy thing to do when you make this sort of cut-and-paste music. If you just want to get the songs done, then you come out with a result that’s not as good as what it could be. The hardest thing is to let it sit. If a song takes two weeks, cool. But if a song takes four months, be patient. That’s the best thing you can do for it.
VB: In The Horror DVD, you talked about adding different elements to your album cuts live, instead of reproducing it as is. When you go out to promote Since We Last Spoke, are you gonna do something similar?
R: Because almost all the songs on the new album have some sort of vocals, I’m gonna try to do remixes for the record so people recognize the acapellas, but maybe not the beat. It’ll work. I think if you make electronic music, the best thing you could do for the live show is record a new album.
VB: Really?
R: Yeah. But that doesn’t make sense, because only really adventurous listeners want to hear something completely new. Most people want to be able to recognize something. So, using acapellas or elements of a beat people recognize with an instrumental they’ve never heard before gives you the best of both worlds.
VB: I got one more thing I want to ask you. You were talking about being in Europe earlier, and how they associated you with the leaders of America and what they were doing throughout the world, like you’re the cause of all the problems and shit. Are you politically active?
R: Yeah. I try and do what I can. I vote. But I’d feel like a hypocrite if I went on and on about politics in all my records or at my gigs just to make money, and then not donate to some political cause. I don’t want to front like I’m some kind of political activist, because I’m not. At the end of the day, I know what’s going on. It’s important to, especially when you’re overseas. But I’m too disillusioned by America to care.
VB: Do you see yourself living in another country down the road?
R: I don’t think another country, but it would be nice to get as far off the grid as possible. Unfortunately, I’m kind of on the IRS\' radar. When you get 1099s, you are. I probably bought a lot of machine guns or a couple of missiles with what I’m going to pay the IRS this year. It sucks.
VB: Do you feel like there’s hope for change?
R: It’s going to come down to this election. Maybe you feel differently, but I feel like the media has changed in the last four years. More and more, I feel like I’m being lied to.
VB: Yeah. I can’t watch that shit.
R: Yeah. I feel like, if Bush wins this election, I don’t know how the whole country can’t feel like something fishy is up.
VB: Yeah. Do you think the people have the ability to confront it if something fishy did happen?
R: I don’t know. I’d like to think so. They say that drug abuse is slowly declining among teenagers in America. So, I’d like to think that Americans are not apathetic because they’re always stoned and playing video games.
Both: (laugh)
READ OUR FIRST INTERVIEW WITH RJD2 HERE.
artid
2627
Old Image
7_1_rjd2.jpg
issue
vol 7 - issue 01 (sep 2004)
section
interviews