RJD2 - Conducting Controlled Experiments (Interview)

Beginning with a borrowed set of turntables, RJD2's career has spanned nearly a decade and a half, surviving through a few label changes and an industry in upheaval. To many he's the mind behind a critically acclaimed Instrumental Hip-Hop album (Deadringer), while others may be familiar with his more Soulful endeavors. But through it all, his goal has remained the same: to create good music. As his upcoming Chicago performance nears, we sat down for a quick interview where RJ touches on the past decade, his new live show, and being an artist in the 'new' industry...

FRANK151: Having worked steadily as an artist for the past 10 years plus, what are the biggest differences in  being an artist between then and now?

RJD2: Your experience in something is informed by your understanding of it.  I have a much better understanding of the lay of the land, how things work now.  But over the life of an artist’s career it’s virtually impossible to compare apples to apples. Comparing my experiences with live gigs now is not fair to the experiences I had 10 years ago because I have the momentum of being on the road 14 years.  I’ve got a lot of systems in place but it’s hard to conduct a controlled experiment, if you will.

But with that said, it seems like it’s a better world for the gigging musician now.

Is that due to more available gigs? or that touring is a good means to maintain visibility?

Yeah that, but it seems like there’s more opportunities for people like me. I look around and see there’s people making electronic music, dance-oriented music or sample-based music, and they’re out there doing big shows.  It seems like there’s more of them now then 10 years ago.

Looking back at your last 2 albums, what prompted your stylistic shift to more band-centric compositions?

This is kind of an over simplification, but at the end of the day I’ve been trying to do the same thing… which is come up with a good song but the tools I use to achieve that goal have changed. I constantly try to shoot at the same target but with different weapons.

So was there a time where you stopped thinking of yourself as a beatmaker, and instead more of a songwriter and/or composer?

To be honest, from the inception of my solo career that was the goal. There were 2 overarching themes that I was working under when I made Deadringer. One of them was to make a record within the Instrumental Hip-Hop framework which appealed to fans of Rap music. At the time, a lot of that type of music was sort of made as an alternative to Rap music, like almost to appeal to people who were disenfranchised with Rap. And I was arguing for the opposite, to make a Left Field record that Gangstarr fans would like as much as Mo Wax & Ninja Tune fans. That was goal #1.

Goal #2 was to take the expansive, moody, noodly, headphone space-out music of the Instrumental Hip-Hop world I was working in and shatter that mold. Making songs that were short, focused, and with arrangements that had more in common with say, Stax Records, than with spacy downtempo music.

Yet your music has always maintained a level of complexity. How do you manage to translate the studio track into a live setting? I imagine it’s incredibly complicated…

[Laughs] Yeah. Whether it’s touring with band or when I’m out by myself. But when I’m approaching the solo shows it’s a hyper-rehearsed, hyper-focused, and hyper-orchestrated DJ set that also includes two samplers that I use to play the sample fodder, the actual elements I used to make my records. I restrict myself to stuff I’ve produced for my own albums or for other people. Then I basically manipulate those and get them as far away from their album incarnations as possible.

So ‘live-remixing’ to certain extent?

Yeah and I try to lean on making it un-sequenced, not in the sense that it’s improvised but that I’m not using a sequencer. To have as much live scratching, MPC/drum machine usage as possible. To give it that breathability, that human element.

Artists are typically seeing more revenue from licensing opportunities over the past few years, and you personally have a key placement on AMC’s Mad Men. Does the fact that a song may be placed effect your creative process?

Definitely not. That would never change how I go about making music. My approach to all this has always been to do whatever I want in the studio, and that would be the ‘pure’ environment where I’m only thinking about making something that interests my own ears. Then when it moves into the world of releasing an album and potentially licensing something, I’m more reckless. And I feel like I can afford to be. When done in conjunction, what ends up happening when music is made with no compromise commercially, when that music gets licensed, that can in essence sustain this business model.

So what can people expect from your performance this Friday 5/20 at The Mid (306 N. Halsted. Chicago, IL)?

I'll have a video element with me. 4 turntables, 2 samplers, 2 mixers. The concept is to touch on as many songs as possible that I’ve produced. Trying to cram as much music into the smallest timeframe!

For more on RJD2 and his Electrical Connections imprint visit him on Facebook or on the Web.