There aren’t too many people on the planet with the name “Ramble,” but producer RJD2 is one of them. Born Ramble Jon Krohn, the Columbus, Ohio-based artist grew up in a family of transients who often traveled around the country. There was nothing “normal” about his upbringing, which gave him the courage to pursue his own artistic endeavors. By the early ‘90s, Krohn found himself knee-deep in music, more specifically, Hip Hop.
In 2002, he signed his first record deal with El-P’s Definitive Jux label in New York City and shortly after released his seminal album, Deadringer, a beautifully constructed opus with contributions from rappers Blueprint, Copywrite and Jakki da Motamouth. The album was a critically acclaimed success and put Krohn on the fast track to a meaningful career.
In 2004, he followed up with Since We Last Spoke and two years later dropped Magnificent City with Aceyalone. Five more albums would follow and in 2006, he crafted the theme song for the television show Mad Men, “A Beautiful Mine,” a track that opened him up to a whole new audience.
The last three years find Krohn as productive as ever with 2013’s More Is Than Isn’t and 2015’s STS x RJD2 with Philly rapper Sugar Tongue Slim (STS). His most recent album, 2016’s Dame Fortune, exhibits more instrumental brilliance with carefully selected guest vocals from singers Phonte Coleman, Josh Krajcik, Jordan Brown, and Son Little, and Blueprint spitting a few bars on “Up in the Clouds.”
With its roots deep in soul music, the 12-track album invites the listener to take a journey through modified versions of funk, Hip Hop, jazz and, of course, soul as he weaves it into one cohesive fabric. Dame Fortune was released into the world March 25 and there’s a sense Krohn is relieved to have it out. After all, the album making process is always daunting, but presumably in the most satisfying way possible. Krohn took some time to discuss his unique name, constructing Dame Fortune and Happy Meals.
The Source: Where did your parents get the name Ramble?
Ramble Jon Krohn (RJD2): My parents were performers and they were traveling around the country. The name Ramble came from that—that’s my understanding of the origins of the name. I guess I would wander off as soon as I learned to crawl. I think that’s part of the story, too [laughs]. But the beauty of having a unisex names is that it’s a name that both parents can agree on it. Before the birth, you can arrive at that name, make that decision and it works whether it’s a boy of girl.
Was it rough growing up with that name?
You’re talking to a Ramble that grew up in the ‘80s. The whole reason I have the “RJ” in RJ’s Electrical Connection is because the popularity of the Rambo movies— that’s why I started going by RJ. People would ask me what my name was and I’d say, ‘Ramble,’ and they’d say, ‘Oh, Rambo?’ I got tired of having that conversation. That’s where RJ comes from literally.
What is the day like the day you release a new project?
I’ve run this gauntlet so many times now, I feel like I know what to expect. It’s not a total surprise. It’s exciting. Usually, the common thing that happens is you get stressed between prepping and hoping the record didn’t leak. That is one component. Mostly, it’s just exciting to get the record out there for people to hear it. You put so much time into it. It’s crazy when I think about it now. You put so much time into the record— writing, composing, recording, mixing, mixing again and going through multiple drafts of mixing on a batch of 20 or 25 songs, then wielding that down to an album. Now you’ve cut 10 or 15 songs, then you have to put in the right order and you’re asking people what’s the best sequence to the album, or if I need to do an intro or do I not. Then you finally make that decision and send it off to mastering. By the time this whole process is done, you’ve put nine months to a year into the record, if not more. It’s a trip to me, the commodity that results in this process is a thing that’s the monetary equivalent of a Happy Meal. Not just that, it’s the cost of the Happy Meal and to some degree, a 40-minute experience or whatever. It’s the same way with a movie. The expense that goes into making a movie is truly never representative of seeing that movie.
Absolutely. It seems so quick compared to the amount of work and money that goes into it.
I don’t mean to say that to lament it. I think it’s cool. I just think it’s interesting when I realized how much work goes into it.
That can apply to writing, as well.
The result of that is somebody is going to read the first half of it at the dentist office and then they’re going to get called in, and forget they were reading it. For some people, it’s just a thing they did for three and a half minutes while they were waiting to get a cavity filled.
There’s a lot of soul in your new one. Have you always been a big fan of that genre?
I don’t think it’s a big stretch. This narrative should make sense to you in that I was just a hip-hop DJ throughout the ‘90s, just playing rap records. Then I got curious about what records were being sampled in the records I was playing. I started doing that research. I went down the rabbit hole, so to speak, into the building blocks of Hip Hop and chasing music backwards, looking at all of the source material of different eras of Hip Hop. If you do that long enough, you’re listening to a lot of soul, funk and disco records, and to a lesser extent reggae and rock. I found myself absorbing those things. When you’re absorbing something, let’s say in a De La Soul track, that is sampling a Parliament track, that basic DNA of that can be traced back to Parliament. It’s not stretch to me for somebody who loves that De La Soul record to put on that same Parliament record and naturally, they would appreciate it. To me, that’s the most logical connection in the world and I would think for most people. For me, at a point, I still listened to rap, but there’s just so much to listen to in terms of soul music. I started digesting and absorbing that. At a point in time, for me as a producer, I feel like my aims kind of shifted. The sensibilities of what I was absorbing turned from DJ Premier sampling a drum break of a soul record and leaned away from showing Premier manifestation of it to showing the source material.
Where did the title Dame Fortune come from?
Why I chose that for the album title, I’m sure not exactly sure. The aesthetics were right. For me, it’s impossible to put into words how an album makes you feel. No words truly capture the emotions. That’s the beauty of music; it often times expresses things you can’t put into words. I want it to resonate with me as a title I like.
