RJD2 leaves HipHop

Producer RJD2 has left Def Jux and is signing with XL Recordings, home of Basement Jaxx and The Prodigy. Stating that there was no bad blood with his longtime label, he sites a change in direction, musically, that contributed to his decision to shop for a different label.

Producer RJD2 has left Def Jux and is signing with XL Recordings, home of Basement Jaxx and The Prodigy. Stating that there was no bad blood with his longtime label, he sites a change in direction, musically, that contributed to his decision to shop for a different label.

“Their direction and their vibe I really feel comfortable with, because it’s got one foot in electronic music and one foot in rock music.,” he told Pitchfork in this article.
Following in the footsteps of DJ Shadow, RJ’s upcoming album focuses more on live instrumentation instead of samples. “Rhythmically, I feel like there’s a continuous thread that would run throughout everying that I’ve done, and I’d like to think the new stuff still has that kind of emphasis on the rhythm section and groove,” RJ said. “[But] there are a lot more songs in major keys. There are a lot more vocal harmonizations. I think it’s a lot prettier than anything I’ve ever done. And it’s all live. There’s, like, one or two samples on there.”

When making Since We Last Spoke in 2004, RJ says, “I was looking for single note passages that I could sample and then take apart note by note and then change the pitch and combine all of the notes just to build a chord, and it was just ridiculous. I could spend five hours going out buying records and then another three hours going through those records in hopes of maybe finding one tiny little guitar passage that [could] work. But if you already know what you’re looking for, then it’s like, ‘Maybe I should spend a month getting my chops up on guitar.’ So that kind of started me along, and plus, you have sample troubles or whatever, legal things.”

For the future RJ tells Pitchfork he is looking “to do an integrated Nelly Furtado/Timbaland kind of thing. I feel like the watershed point for me is if the rapper would be willing to have me sing the hook. Not that I necessarily want to do that, but that’s the kind of situation I want to be in, [where] somebody really trusts me. I need a buddy, a Pharrell to my Chad Hugo.”

This year Rj has released Things go better with Rj and Al with Blueprint as Soul Position and Magnificent City with Aceyalone.