Already, 2006 is shaping up as a prolific year for RJD2, the sound-collage king from Columbus, Ohio. He accompanied LA underground legend Aceyalone on Magnificent City and manned the decks for Soul Position’s Things Go Better With RJ and Al, his collaboration with Rhymesayers emcee Blueprint. This week saw the release of Magnificent Instrumentals.

Lest we forget, RJ’s solo work – Deadringer and Since We Last Spoke – has been hailed as “21st century soul.”

[mp3] Soul Position Keep it Hot for Daddy

RJ is in Tempe, Ariz., tonight with Blueprint and he was kind enough to answer 10 quick questions via e-mail in which he discusses “junk” records, this year’s projects and we discover he’s just like you and me – he likes (who else?) Sufjan Stevens:

1. It’s been a busy year for you with the Aceyalone and Soul Position projects. Have you had much time to think about or set out a blueprint (so to speak) for your next solo project?
RJ: Yea, im getting that thing going. i dont want to talk about it right now much, though, if thats ok. alot is up in the air.

2. How does your mind-set differ when you’re gathering samples and creating music for a collaborative project as opposed to your solo works (if at all)?
RJ: the things that i end up keeping for myself are usually things that have the potential to be developed into something bigger. i see the production work i do for other people as something that should have a different feel than my solo records.

3. When you do two projects like Magnificent City and Things Go Better with two different MCs do you tailor the production beats to each MC’s style? In other words, do you have the MC in mind when you’re making the music?
RJ: no. when im working with a rapper, i try to send them as much variety as possible, within the confines of something that could be rapped on. i have learned that sending a particular sound to people can leave out things they might want to work with.

4. Can you discuss similarities or differences in working with Aceyalone and Blueprint?
RJ: the new sp (Soul Position) album, to me, is a very stylized affair. i think it is mostly a soul/funk oriented record, sonically. the acey album is all over the place, in my eyes. acey wanted me to do whatever i wanted, and really trusted my vision for the record. blueprint has always been more hands on, but he’s also a producer, so that probably makes him more picky.

5. Let’s get a handle on your vinyl collection: How many LPs/45s would you say you own — and, as a follow-up, what’s your most prized or sentimental piece?
RJ: off the top of my head, i would have to say any of the columbus rock or soul records i have, or one of the few new things i have that sampled an rjd2 record.

6.When you go digging/shopping for vinyl, are you looking for albums that have potential in terms of samples or are you simply looking for good albums? (A side question: Where do you do a majority of your vinyl buying — thrift stores, garage sales?)
RJ: honestly, i havent been hyper-obsessed with records for the last two years or so, because my focus has moved over to gear, but in general, the challenge of sampling for me has always been to make something better, or make something good out of bad source material. so i have a lot of “junk” records, things you probably wouldnt want.

7. There seemed to be a phase for a few years where scratch-heavy “turntablism” was all the rage. With guys like yourself, Shadow, Z-Trip, Cut Chemist, etc., how do you see the art of DJing progressing?
RJ: i dont know. i guess it seems like there are a lot of different approaches to djing, producing, making electronic music, or hiphop, and they all seem to cross-pollinate every year or so. now, im just thinking in terms of music. i want to make something someday that will stand up next to “real” music, so im not just keeping my eyes on my peers, if you will.

8. In most reviews and stories, writers are quick to call your music “cut-and-paste.” That seems like a major oversimplifcation. Are you at all offended by that term?
RJ: no. i think that, or collage music, is an accurate term for the records i have done in the past. id like to think im moving more towards a more cohesive sound, but i think its accurate for my solo albums. really, any other kind of record is made very similarly-you cut the rhythm section, send the session down to another studio to get the strings done, the singer comes in two weeks later to record the vocals. my records are done just like that, except i end up pulling the source material from whatever i can find in my home.

9. The Brainfreeze project by Cut Chemist and Shadow seemed to spark interest in the original source material and artists they sampled. Is that an intended goal when you’re producing music, to perhaps uncover or reintroduce a long-lost artist/album to the public?
RJ: no. like i said before, one of my underlying goals is to not use good music as source material.

10. Finally, what artists, bands or musicians are inspiring your work — past and present?
RJ: right now, im into dungen, sufjan stevens, ELO, the teeth, dead sea.

RJD2’s catalog, including Magnificent City and Things Go Better, is available at eMusic.

Last night …

Saw John Vanderslice with Laura Veirs at Modified. John freaking Vanderslice. Played an hour and half and at least 20 songs, probably more. I won’t bore you with some full-blown concert review. I strongly recommend you see him as the chemistry with this band is unreal. Also, he’s selling John Vanderslice pillowcases. Seriously. (But do yourself a favor and spend the 12 bucks on a CD.)

If you didn’t see him on this tour (and there are only three dates left), maybe you should click here and download an entire live set that JV graciously provides on his Web site. And he did say that Phoenix (specifically Modified) was his favorite place to play in the country. Boo ya!

JV songs that zoomed to top of my rotation after last night:

• Up Above the Sea: The keyboard/bass action is so menacing live.
• Continuation: The opening few measures with that drum beat are begging to be sampled somewhere.
• Time Travel is Lonely: Just listen. Dear lord.

OK, so I’ve had this one in the bag for a while, and I’ve been really excited to post it. After I posted on the Procussions (who opened for Digable Planets last year), I was contacted about an opportunity to interview Doodlebug (aka Cee Knowledge), one-third of the fantastic Digable Planets. Yeah, like I was going to say no to that.

The DPs, as many of you know, reunited last year after 10 years apart. I’m excited about the potential that Doodle, Butterfly and Ladybug can recapture. Even if it feels a bit nostalgic, there’s still a market eager for what the DPs offered in their heyday.

For me, any conversation of hip-hop includes Digable, who blended the cool-cat vibes of jazz with laid-back beats to create a chilled vibe. It’s almost surreal that they reformed, but hip-hop is better for it:

How’s the touring?
“It’s good. … We’ve been touring all of 2005 up until the end of January. Now we’re gonna take a break. I’m gonna start working on a solo project. … I have a new mixtape out called the Cosmic Funk Essentials. Around April we’ll start working to record a new Digable Planets album.”

(mp3) Cee Knowledge (with Giant) | Jazz Is

What kinda people are you seeing at shows?
“I’m seeing a lot of young cats, so they obviously couldn’t have been big fans when we were first out … they’d have been too young. After shows, I’m talking to people that say they’ve been down with us for so long and they went to shows. There’s also cats that are in college that heard about us and liked our music and never had a chance to see us perform and they were excited because they never thought they’d have a chance to see us perform. … I think it’s a mixture of old and new.”

What’s the response been like?
“Yeah, it’s real great. After such a long break, for them to have all those people come out and show support with no new record out … that was awesome, man.”

What sort of response where you expecting?
“I really didn’t know what to expect. You always hope for the best, but I didn’t know what to expect. It’s a blessing that after all this time, we’re still … in some people’s minds. They wanted to come out and pay their hard-earned money to see us.”

What can we expect on a new album?
“I really don’t know … it’s gonna be 10 years’ experience traveling the world, meeting new people. I think we all grew as artists, as producers, as people and producers. That growth should be shown on a new album.”

What led to you guys splitting apart?
“There’s a lot of different things. It would take too long to go into them all. I’m not trying to air no dirty laundry. It boiled down to us being young, rebellious and not really understanding the business. Our record label was starting to fall apart around the time we broke up. Our management company wasn’t together right. A lot of things that were going on, plus personal issues that kinda put us in a corner. … We got into this for fun. And when it stopped being fun, we decided to walk away. ”

Was there regret?
“Most definitely. I can only speak for myself … I didn’t think it was a good idea. But it was the best thing to do at the time. After a couple of years I definitely regretted it, and I stayed in touch with the other two. I did some solo stuff and Ladybug would come in and help me out on some things. Butterfly came in on a show I did in Philadelphia.

“But it took awhile for everybody to get over whatever the issues we had to get over. Finally we were mature enough to talk about those issues. I had an opportunity to do a tour in Europe last February and I thought it might be a good chance to get everyone back together again. And if it didn’t’ work out and if everyone wasn’t feeling it anymore, it would have just been a nostalgia thing, it woulda been over. Halfway through the tour everybody was coming up to me telling me how much they loved it and how they wanted to keep it movin’.”

Was it ever a thought before the tour that you should get back together?
“We had some legal issues that we had to handle that we all had to come together again for. … But that didn’t really need us to be in the same city again. A couple of months after that, I kept in Ladybug’s ear and Butterfly’s ear. Eventually, we got to a point where we sat down and decided after a couple of talks on the phone to sit down in September 2004. We had a meeting for a couple of hours, and at end of the meeting, we decided, let’s try it.

“We hired a booking agent. We were booked up for an entire year. It was amazing that people actually wanted to book us. It was exciting, it was a real exciting time, man.”

What was it like the first time back on stage?
“The first time was kinda nerve-racking a little bit. I wasn’t sure what to expect, I didn’t know what to do. It had been 10 years or more since we were on the stage together. But at the same time, we were all professionals. Individually, we maintained a stage presence doing our solo projects. I was nervous all the way up to the time we hit the stage, but once we hit the stage all the nervousness died away. We just flowed. The first show (in Vienna) was hot. It was real hot. It was real tight.”

What do you think has changed from time you split up to now?
“The music, the artists, the culture that surrounds the artists and the recording. That hasn’t really changed. But the way they market and way record labels are involved, their level of involvement is a lot different than 10 to 12 years ago. They’re willing to put up bigger budgets. Marketing campaigns are outrageous. People are getting a lot more money than back when we were doing it. … The focus in terms of market has changed. The mainstream market is really more focused on the pop, that gangsta rap. It’s different. We’re a little older. I think there’s a market for everything. Going out and doing these shows has really proved it to me. With no record out and not too much publicicty, these shows are packed, people were out there and they were interested. They knew the songs and they would sing along with us. These are songs out in ’94, ’95. So I’m like, ‘Damn!’ There’s definitely still a market for this.”

It shows people are starving for good hip-hop.
“There’s still good music. It’s just that the mainstream doesn’t always seem to focus on the good stuff. Underground has held down a lot of great artists. They just might not have right outlet or right situation that it takes to get there. It’s also a lot of luck.”

Are you nervous that you’ve lost a portion of your fan base?
“It’s probably gonna show in terms of record sales. That’s where there the pressure is more on us. It’s pressure because you have to find a label that’s willing to do it. But as long as you do your thing and be yourself … at the time we did our first album, nobody thought we would have commercial success. Everybody looked at us as group that would be college radio group. A&R signed us took a chance with us. All meetings were concentrated on college marketing. Then the single (Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat) ) came out and it somehow hit a nerve with the fan base. And it went way past their expectations. I don’t think they were even ready for what came with that song.

“As long as you stay true to yourself as an artist and a person and do your thing and do the best you can do, you never know. There’s no guarantee people are going to like you, as long as we do our best I’m happy with that. … I know there’s a fan base that’s going to follow us and grow with us.

“We’re gonna grow. We’re not gonna be the same. There’s gonna be a fan base that’s gonna want to hear to hear another Cool Like Dat. But that might not be something that’s going to come out of us. I don’t know what’s going to come out of us. But whatever it is, it’s going to be real, it’s going to be natural and it’s going to be fly.

You’ve got so many people caught up in nostalgia. There’s got to be a fine line, catering to fans that were with you back in the day but also moving forward.
“Yeah, that is true. The position we’ve been put in, it’s been so long, people didn’t even think we were gonna come back. And now they’ve solidified their ideas of what we’re supposed to sound like. ‘Cause all they had to listen to was the first two albums. They weren’t with us when we grew as individuals when we were apart for those 10 years. So the dynamic of all three of us together, it’s going to be different for all of us … us and our fan base.

“Hopefully it’ll work out. I’m confident that it will, just from energy of the live shows. That was the key to whether or not we were going to be able to do this. After 10 years, you have to regain that vibe and that trust as performers. And on stage, I think we reclaimed that.”