RJD2

Tim Fulton 0:09Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week, I sat down with Ramble John Krone, better known as RJD2, to talk about his journey from eight-year-old classic rock fan to hip hop DJ and producer, his many collaborative projects over the years, how Columbus has grown as an incubator of creativity, and the primacy of the groove in his musical vision. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Also, the Confluence Cast is on Patreon. Find out how to... Also, the Confluence Cast is on Patreon. Find out how to support this podcast on our website, theconfluencecast.com, or at patreon.com/confluence. The Confluence Cast is sponsored by Art Makes Columbus, Columbus Makes Art, featuring stories about our city's incredible artists, stories full of inspiration, challenge, passion, and success. For videos, articles, an up-to-the-minute calendar of events, and an artist directory, visit columbusmakesart.com, the resource for all things arts and ca- the resource for all things arts and culture in the capital city. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Ramble John Krone, better known as musician, producer, former and current DJ RJD2. How are you, sir?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 1:55I'm great. How are you?

Tim Fulton 1:56Good. May I just refer to you as RJ throughout the-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 1:59Any of it. RJ, Ramble, RJD2.

Tim Fulton 2:02Got it.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 2:03I answer to all of them.

Tim Fulton 2:04Got it. You are... You've been a musician since 1993, I believe Wikipedia told me. First album released in 2002. Just had an album released last year. That's Dame Fortune, which you can check out. How did this, how did you get into music?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 2:24I had a, what in, in, you know, in hindsight was kind of a seminal experience with a friend of mine who... It actually, some of you may know, there's like a Harry Potter-esque house on Indianola, just south of Weber.

Tim Fulton 2:39Yeah.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 2:40You know that house?

Tim Fulton 2:41I do know that house.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 2:41Okay. A family named the Eriksons owned that house, and, uh, I was friends with one of the, the, the, with the son-

Tim Fulton 2:49Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 2:50... Karis. And I had a, an experience sometime when I was around, I don't know, seven or eight or nine years old or something like that, of, as I remember it, he showed me how to play "Stairway to Heaven" on guitar in that house.

Tim Fulton 3:06Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 3:06And it was, it, the moment, I mean, I was a big classic rock fan by then, you know, Hendrix and Zeppelin and so on and so forth.

Tim Fulton 3:14This was what age?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 3:15I'm g- uh, you know how memory is when you're, you think back-

Tim Fulton 3:17Yeah

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 3:18... to your childhood, it's a little fuzzy. I'm gonna guess somewhere around seven or eight or nine.

Tim Fulton 3:24Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 3:25So he knew how to, you know, had a k- he must have had like the, the fingering on paper or something. And anyway, this, this experience of being in that house, and it was the first time that I'd made a connection between a recording originating from a human performance.

Tim Fulton 3:43Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 3:44And right then and there, I kinda decided I wanted to get a guitar and figure out how to play these, you know, passages from m- the records that I was obsessed with at the time. And then from there, it just kinda, you know, snowballed that I, I was a fan of music. I convinced my mom to buy me a guitar.

Tim Fulton 4:03Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 4:04Later got into percussion and drumming, and then, you know, I had a just sort of a scattershot set of interests as it pertains to music, piano lessons and percussion and, you know, kinda interested in anything. Played trumpet for a little while. But as I got older, the, the more I, I realized that at the, at the core of it, what I was, what really sucked me into music was grooves. You know, when I look back at, at stuff like Zeppelin, I realize that my favorite parts of the records were the parts where the rhythm was playing the forefront of it.

Tim Fulton 4:40Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 4:41So-

Tim Fulton 4:42It wasn't in the background, you mean? It wasn't, like, there as a vehicle for something else.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 4:47Correct. Correct.

Tim Fulton 4:48Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 4:48And, and, and I guess maybe more specifically, the vocal melodies were never that big of a deal for me, and the lyrics were never that big of a deal for me. And I kinda cared and I kinda didn't, but, you know, to me, the most impact, the, the... You know, when I looked at all my favorite songs, I realized my favorite parts, my favorite moments were all that part where the band was playing, and you had a rhythm, and that rhythm had some swing and some groove to it. It's easy for me to use Zeppelin as an example because there are so many examples in that catalog, but this applied to a number of different things from, you know, Prince to Tears for Fears to Michael Jackson to, you know, later on I got very interested in soul music through hip-hop. But anyway, that interest in, in a groove, y- you know, I bounced around doing these things and realizing that it was just one component of this thing that I really was obsessed with.

Tim Fulton 5:42Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 5:42So in high school, I, I, I was a fan, you know, I, I was a fan of rap when I was younger, but at the time I didn't understand, you know, any kind of delineations in style between-

Tim Fulton 5:55Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 5:55... it and anything else.

Tim Fulton 5:57Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 5:57You know, when you're, you're seven or eight, you're just like, "Oh, that's cool. He's rapping. Awesome."

Tim Fulton 6:01Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 6:01"Oh, he's... Oh, and then there's a, there's a, there's a-" You know, a Slayer dude is playing a guitar solo on a Beastie Boys record? Cool. Cool guitar solo. You don't think of these as, like, disparate-

Tim Fulton 6:12It's all music.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 6:13Oh, exactly.

Tim Fulton 6:14Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 6:14So, you know, later on when I, I was in high school and I got into... really got o- kind of obsessed with hip-hop as a whole and became a DJ, and then that led into being a producer, that to me was kind of the first time when I was fully able to scratch that itch, if you will, of the, this, coming back to this idea of, like, the rhythm and the groove of a thing being at the core element of-

Tim Fulton 6:41And that's what you f-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 6:42... of importance to me

Tim Fulton 6:43... that's what you focused on as a DJ and then later as a producer is what you're saying.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 6:46Precisely.

Tim Fulton 6:47Got it.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 6:47So when, you know what I mean, as a guitar player, you're only e- responsible for one part of how a song or a groove feels.

Tim Fulton 6:53Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 6:53B- having a, a machine where you can control the exact drum parts, bass parts, keyboard parts, whatever, any of those components, the rhythmic structure of something, that was the first time when I found an outlet in which you could control every component of it, and that-

Tim Fulton 7:14So your-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 7:14... I really fell into it

Tim Fulton 7:15... your involvement in music up to that point had sort of been trying to reach that point, and it was finally with DJing.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 7:22That'd be a way of telling it as a tidy narrative, but life-

Tim Fulton 7:26Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 7:26... life doesn't play out-

Tim Fulton 7:26Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 7:27... in a tidy narrative . You know, it's, it's much more, you know, shotgun-esque.

Tim Fulton 7:31Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 7:32You know how life is. It's... I, so I didn't know that that's what I was looking for until I did it.

Tim Fulton 7:36Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 7:36And that was... So I kind of fell into this thing not realizing that it was the one thing that I felt like, you know, not only was my... It, it, it provided a vehicle for my passion, but to be totally honest with you, I think that it was best suited to my skill set.

Tim Fulton 7:53Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 7:54Because I've never been a, a very accomplished instrumentalist in any field, you know? Uh, I, I, I'm okay in any of these fields, good enough to get a recording done-

Tim Fulton 8:04Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 8:04... to make a record, but I'm not gonna... You know, nobody's gonna call me to sit in on anything. Nobody's gonna call me to play bass on their album-

Tim Fulton 8:12Or even the-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 8:12... or anything like that

Tim Fulton 8:13... performative aspect of something like that.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 8:14Precisely.

Tim Fulton 8:15Right, okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 8:15Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm, frankly speaking, I'm a, I'm a li- I'm, I'm probably a little too rough around the edges to even make it in that world.

Tim Fulton 8:21Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 8:21But what I felt like I, I could do and I can do, hopefully I, I am doing, is seeing the big picture of what should happen with a composition and a groove and a song and all of the pieces. So in that sense, y- you know, I look at... The analogy's been used before in, in, in hip-hop, but, you know, I look at people like Quincy Jones-

Tim Fulton 8:42Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 8:42... or Arif Mardin as these guys who are really the-

Tim Fulton 8:48The vision behind it.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 8:49Yeah, yeah. They, yeah, th- r- yeah, exactly. They're, they're executing that vision of what an, a, a recording is going to look like when it's completed, and that is the thing that I aspire to.

Tim Fulton 8:59Got it. So when you started DJing, that was in Columbus, right?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 9:03Yeah.

Tim Fulton 9:03What sort of venues? Was it house shows or-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 9:06Yeah, you know, I mean, at the time it was just any house party.

Tim Fulton 9:10Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 9:11Later on, I moved to the Bay for a, a brief period of time after high school, and when I was out there, I would go out to clubs, and at the time there was this, there was a, a group of DJs called the Invisible Scratch Pickles who would go on to be, to have some renown-

Tim Fulton 9:27Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 9:27... in that small little subculture of DJing.

Tim Fulton 9:31Mm-hmm.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 9:32And I would go see these guys, and it, it was just mind-blowing what they were doing in, you know, '95, '96-ish. And so coming back to Columbus, I think in '97, that was my fo- focus.

Tim Fulton 9:47Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 9:47Was kinda like being a scratch DJ. You know, the technical side of it was more interesting to me than... I had no interest in radio DJing. And, and, a- and even then being a, like, a club DJ, there was just a little bit too-

Tim Fulton 10:01You didn't wanna play the hits.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 10:02Exactly.

Tim Fulton 10:03Got it.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 10:03Yeah. And there, and, and there was an a- uh, uh, you know, a lane in which you could exist and not have to do that.

Tim Fulton 10:08Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 10:09So that's kind of the world that I fell into when I came back here that time, and Bernie's became a, uh, at a point in time, uh, they started doing a, a hip-hop night-

Tim Fulton 10:20Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 10:20... every Sunday night at Bernie's, and that-

Tim Fulton 10:23Which lasted almost up until the very end.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 10:26Did it?

Tim Fulton 10:26At least it, it, yeah, at least in different iterations, yeah.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 10:29That's great.

Tim Fulton 10:29There were a couple of different people managing it, but Sunday night hip-hop night was, yeah.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 10:34Yeah. So all the, all the guys that were... You know, there, and there became kind of, like, a, a crew of people that would come out to that, and-

Tim Fulton 10:42Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 10:42... there were other venues around town, you know, the Smiling Rhino and Thieves' World and The Groove Shack. Uh, really before, I should mention The Groove Shack bec- because before Bernie's became the primary outlet for kids that were both fans of hip-hop and were participating in it-

Tim Fulton 10:58Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 10:59... The Groove Shack was kinda like the home base-

Tim Fulton 11:03Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 11:03... if you will.

Tim Fulton 11:03Now, did you grow up on, like, North Campus and Old North?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 11:06Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton 11:06Where at?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 11:08Glenmar Avenue.

Tim Fulton 11:09Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 11:10Uh, south of Hudson between Summit and Fourth.

Tim Fulton 11:13Got it. So I grew up on Indianola between Oakland and Northwood.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 11:17Okay.

Tim Fulton 11:17Yeah.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 11:17Hey.

Tim Fulton 11:18Yeah.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 11:19Spitting distance.

Tim Fulton 11:20Indeed. Indeed.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 11:21Do you, uh... And, uh, uh, so we're probably of similar age.

Tim Fulton 11:25Slight. I am sort of-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 11:26Uh, you're probably a little bit-

Tim Fulton 11:26... basically, I would've been, like, in eighth grade when you were a senior in, in high school.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 11:31Gotcha. Okay.

Tim Fulton 11:32And so you were in San Francisco. You came back to Columbus, was, were doing some DJing. Why did you then move out to Philly?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 11:41So just to, to, to dig into that a little bit-

Tim Fulton 11:45Yeah

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 11:45... and maybe... Shortly after coming back here, I got, I was, I was totally... By that point in time, I had devoted effectively all my free time to DJing-

Tim Fulton 11:58Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 11:58... and learning how to be a producer, a, a, a hip-hop producer.

Tim Fulton 12:02Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 12:02I broke my arm skateboarding at Dodge Park, and I had a kind of a, a- What would you call it? A s- a fork in the road or a watershed moment or whatever you wanna call it-

Tim Fulton 12:10There were paths that you could choose, right?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 12:12Where, yeah, the, the, yeah, and in that moment I was like, "I, I, I gotta take one or the other seriously," and-

Tim Fulton 12:16And I'm sorry, it was between skateboarding and DJing.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 12:19Yeah.

Tim Fulton 12:19Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 12:20Exactly, yeah. So I decided then and there I was gonna stop, you know, being stupid on a skateboard.

Tim Fulton 12:26Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 12:26And I, I g- I, I I, I gave away my skateboard in kind of a ceremonial moment to a, a ki- I left it on the porch of a kid down the street.

Tim Fulton 12:36Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 12:36It was a younger kid that I noticed, you know, was skating and-

Tim Fulton 12:40He could use it.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 12:41Yeah, hopefully that it went to good use. And so I devoted all my time to that, and shortly after '97-ish when I moved back, uh, I fell in with a group of guys, uh, that had a group called The Megahertz, and became their DJ and part-time producer because everyone was kinda making beats in that group.

Tim Fulton 13:00Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 13:01We fell in with a record label called Fondle 'Em Records that was an independent label out of New York, and that led to some work with Rawkus Records, and, uh, that led to some work with a label called Def Jux. And in 2001 they put out a compilation record that I had a song on, and then by then I had completed my first record, and they were gonna put it out. And that record, uh, came out in the summer of 2002.

Tim Fulton 13:32That was Deadringer.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 13:32Yes.

Tim Fulton 13:33Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 13:33And by then I was... You know, I think I had done one or two tours with those guys, Mr. Lif and El-P and, uh, the guys buzzing around in that world.

Tim Fulton 13:47Mm-hmm.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 13:48And it, it just, it felt to me like I needed to... I was having to go to New York a lot. I, you know, I liked Philly and, you know, for some personal r- reasons there was a push to Philadelphia.

Tim Fulton 14:06Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 14:06And so that, you know, I kinda went along with that, and was there until 2015, we moved back.

Tim Fulton 14:17Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 14:18Yeah, so.

Tim Fulton 14:19And you moved back, it's been-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 14:19And a lot happened between then and then of course, but yeah.

Tim Fulton 14:22Right. More albums, more collaborations, and I wanna get into some of that.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 14:25Yeah, sure.

Tim Fulton 14:25But a lot of, at least, so there was an article in Six1four I think last year that talked about part of the reason was you had a son.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 14:34Yeah.

Tim Fulton 14:34He was getting to be a certain age, and so it was just time to be sort of closer to family.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 14:39Yeah, exactly. Yep, so, you know, uh, my family moved back to Columbus, and, you know, wound up in Clintonville for those reasons.

Tim Fulton 14:48You're back home.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 14:49I am back home, and it's great. You know, it's awesome. And, and I, and, and I recognize that we're skipping over a, a lot there from 2012, 20- 2002 to 2015. But yeah, to answer that ques- question directly, yeah, it's awesome being back, man. It's a different city than what I left it.

Tim Fulton 15:05Talk about those differences. What do you see that's, you know... Obviously some things have changed.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 15:10Yeah.

Tim Fulton 15:11Do you know?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 15:12The, the biggest change to me is that my perception of the cultural leaning of people that are graduating college, graduating high school-

Tim Fulton 15:24Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 15:25... anything from that, you know, 18 to 25-ish age bracket-

Tim Fulton 15:28That's still sort of trying to figure out what you're gonna do and-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 15:32Yeah.

Tim Fulton 15:32Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 15:32So, you know, you come out of high school and you're like, "What am I gonna do with my life? Where am I going? What am I doing?" And, and some of us choose to go to college, some of us wanna get a degrees. Uh, some of us don't know what we're doing, you know? And my experience of being that age in Columbus, I graduated from high school in 1994. At that time, Columbus felt like a place where y- if you wanted to make a living in the arts-

Tim Fulton 16:00Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 16:01... or be an entrepreneur, y- you effectively had to move.

Tim Fulton 16:05Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 16:06It, it, you, there weren't a lot of people that were... I hesitate to use the term making it, because it can imply a lot of different things for different people.

Tim Fulton 16:15Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 16:15But I'll, I'll say making a living.

Tim Fulton 16:17Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 16:19There were not a lot of people making a living through anything creative in my social periphery-

Tim Fulton 16:26Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 16:27... at that time.

Tim Fulton 16:28Or even what you were aware of.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 16:30Yeah.

Tim Fulton 16:30Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 16:30Yeah, exactly. You know, i- if I had 10 people that I could name, even though I didn't know 'em, it was just like, "Oh, so-and-so is m- he's paying his rent-

Tim Fulton 16:38Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 16:38... sh- shooting photos? Oh, okay, cool." Or so- You know what I mean? There was... It was so few and far between.

Tim Fulton 16:45Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 16:46So it just felt like a long shot to stay here, and that was the cultural context, if you will-

Tim Fulton 16:52Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 16:53... that I felt-

Tim Fulton 16:54That you grew up in

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 16:55... myself a part of.

Tim Fulton 16:55Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 16:56Came of age in. So now when I look at w- what I see for, granted I'm not that age right now, so it might be different, but what I see is more people making a living, some of them in the arts, but, you know, I, I definitely know ph- photographers-

Tim Fulton 17:11Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 17:11... that are making a living here. And the entrepreneurial spirit seems to be very much alive and well. And, you know, in a general sense it just seems like there's more people that wanna be here. They're here because they want to-

Tim Fulton 17:24Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 17:25... not because they're s- stuck here, because they grew up here.

Tim Fulton 17:26Or because they grew up here, right?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 17:28Exactly, yeah.

Tim Fulton 17:28And they didn't have an opportunity to go somewhere else.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 17:32Yeah.

Tim Fulton 17:32'Cause, you know, larger cities aren't always easy also.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 17:36Oh, no.

Tim Fulton 17:36Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 17:37I got a buddy that's, that's about to leave New York, and he grew up here, and he hacked it out in New York forever, but he got to a point where he's just like-

Tim Fulton 17:45That was enough

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 17:45... the constant grind was-

Tim Fulton 17:47Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 17:47... was in, you know, it just became too much for him.

Tim Fulton 17:49Yeah.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 17:50So.

Tim Fulton 17:51Talk about how you tend to work now, at least in your creative pursuit. L- do you have like a studio set up at home or an-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 17:58Yeah

Tim Fulton 17:58... an office outside of your house?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 18:01I've always been a home studio guy.

Tim Fulton 18:02Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 18:03A lot of what I do i- a- as a recording artist- Is it's very stop and starty. It's kind of like short burst.

Tim Fulton 18:14Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 18:15Or, you know, it's like the interval training of music, if you will. And so because of that, it's not... I don't have a lot of incentive to commute and be there for eight hours.

Tim Fulton 18:27Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 18:27You know, to kinda give you a real world example, if I'm working on a project for, you know, let's say I'm demoing on a spot for like a, like an ad-

Tim Fulton 18:38Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 18:38... a, an ad spot for Lexus or something-

Tim Fulton 18:41Got it

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 18:41... whatever. Uh, th- here's how that'll look. It'll look like this, that we want a thing that's gonna be a 30-second cut down. It might be of a preexisting piece, it might be from the ground up composition.

Tim Fulton 18:55Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 18:56Once that piece is in place, you're doing all these tiny revisions, you know, so it's, it, it'll be, "We just need the, the, the drum to drop out at the 26-second mark just for a, a, a beat." And usually the-

Tim Fulton 19:09Or we need a certain aspect of it to last just a little bit longer because-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 19:12Precisely.

Tim Fulton 19:13Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 19:13Yeah, and there's these, these tiny, tiny little adjustments that you're doing that only take 15 minutes at a, any given time.

Tim Fulton 19:20Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 19:20And if you can be on call to do them, you know, in that world, to use that as... That's not the only thing that I do, but-

Tim Fulton 19:27Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 19:27... when I'm doing that, you only need that 15 minutes, but the thing is the, the, the client usually wants it as quick as they can.

Tim Fulton 19:35Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 19:35Usually the, in my experience, the, the tone is kinda like, "We want it yesterday," type of thing. So-

Tim Fulton 19:40Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 19:41... if y- for me, being home and just going up, doing a quick edit, boom, boom, boom, and then I'm done, that's kind of, that's what it looks like. And, and-

Tim Fulton 19:50You're sort of on call. Like, there are certain times where you're, I imagine you're spending a little bit more than 15 minutes on a 30-second piece, but-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 19:57Oh, yeah

Tim Fulton 19:58... that's sort of, it's almost like you're, it's almost like contract work, right?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 20:03It totally is contract work.

Tim Fulton 20:04It is contract work.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 20:06It is.

Tim Fulton 20:07Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 20:07Precisely what it is. And I think that a lot of self-employed people probably understand this dynamic-

Tim Fulton 20:11Yeah

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 20:12... where, you know, what you give up is, when you said you're on call, that to me is the kind of like the operative dynamic-

Tim Fulton 20:19Yeah

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 20:19... there in that y- you don't need to put in eight hours at any given time, and you will, you know, the net workday can look like a two-hour day, a one-hour day, a three-hour day-

Tim Fulton 20:33Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 20:33... a four-hour day. You know, that's not uncommon, but the thing is you gotta be available all the ti- that's the trade-off.

Tim Fulton 20:39Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 20:40You know?

Tim Fulton 20:40So you have an agent- you have a certain amount of agency in that, like, again, you don't ever have to work more than four hours a day, but if you think you're done, somebody may be able to, you know, knock on the door, email you, call you, and say, "Hey, we need a, you know, an edit to this. This needs to change."

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 20:58Yeah.

Tim Fulton 20:58Or, "Hey, we, we've got something else that we wanna talk to you about."

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 21:02Yeah.

Tim Fulton 21:03And you're missing out on an opportunity if you're not able to talk about it.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 21:06Absolutely, yeah.

Tim Fulton 21:08Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 21:08And, so in very crude and broad strokes, you know, what people's lives like myself look like is, I see it as I gave up, I, I traded in the potential to be stuck at a, at a nine-to-five job-

Tim Fulton 21:23Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 21:23... where I took instead a job where I'm, instead of 40 hours a week, I might only work, you know, 10 hours a week.

Tim Fulton 21:31Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 21:31But I can't exactly decide when those 10 hours are, if that makes any sense.

Tim Fulton 21:35Absolutely it does.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 21:36And to me, that's a worthy trade. I'm still, I'm happy-

Tim Fulton 21:38Yeah

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 21:38... to make that ca- I'll, if I have to, you know, consciously make that trade tomorrow again, I, I would gladly make that.

Tim Fulton 21:46Do you have to make a conscious choice between, like, commercial work and what I would refer to as more artistic work?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 21:53You know, it, that's a great conversate... It's a really, really fascinating topic of conversation, and I th- think that it manifests itself differently for everyone.

Tim Fulton 22:06Mm-hmm.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 22:07For me, I've been lucky in that, you know, one thing I've learned is that, like, there's things that you could spend all day pontificating on, but at the end of the day, the actualization of it is gonna look different than what you think it's gonna look like. And this is-

Tim Fulton 22:27Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 22:27... this is one of them for me in that, you know, I, I don't have to make grand decisions about this topic because the actualization of this for me that is, is I'll make records.

Tim Fulton 22:45Mm-hmm.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 22:46And when I'm making solo records, all bets are off. I, I do whatever I want.

Tim Fulton 22:49Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 22:50There's no commercial constraints. There's no language constraints. There's, I can do whatever I please at that moment.

Tim Fulton 22:58And let me put words in your mouth, it's more fun.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 23:00Exactly.

Tim Fulton 23:00Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 23:00Totally. And that's, and that is my passion, and that's a thing that I may or may not release music till the day I die, but I will make recordings until the day I die because it's just too much fun.

Tim Fulton 23:12Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 23:12It's just too satisfying. It's too, it's too interesting, you know? So that's what I do as a solo recording artist, but it doesn't take up all of my time. When I am doing something like a commercial or licensing work, th- that's another thing that, you know, I, I try to do it on my terms.

Tim Fulton 23:34Mm-hmm.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 23:35Uh, there's things that I, I definitely say no to a lot of things that I just-

Tim Fulton 23:39Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 23:39... don't, you know, sometimes-

Tim Fulton 23:41That doesn't really fit. That's not really what I do even.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 23:44Yeah.

Tim Fulton 23:44Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 23:44Sometimes it's creative. Sometimes it's f- uh, from a branding perspective, you know, somebody wants you to, you know... I had to, uh, you know, pass on a thing last month that, uh, just w- from a brand perspective is, you know, I, I try to-

Tim Fulton 23:58Like, you don't wanna be aligned with it?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 24:01Eh, that's kinda, it's a, that's a strong way of putting it.

Tim Fulton 24:05Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 24:05But, and, and, and it, I guess more specifically, I f- I feel I- I feel compelled to at least work with brands that as a consumer I would use.

Tim Fulton 24:18And it's not even anything-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 24:19Yeah

Tim Fulton 24:19... against them, it's just like that's not what... That doesn't represent who I am.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 24:24I- yeah.

Tim Fulton 24:25Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 24:25In so many ways. So i- and, and, and, and that's kind of, I try not to draw hard lines there, but-

Tim Fulton 24:30Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 24:30... you know, you, you feel it out and you, you make that call in the moment. But generally speaking, you know, if I'm a snob about... I'm, I'm not a snob about sneakers.

Tim Fulton 24:39Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 24:39But I would say, like, you know, to use that as an example, like if somebody was a sneaker snob, and then, and they did what I did, and then somebody, they, uh, uh, I don't know what, what is considered, I don't... Payless? I don't know. What's like the cheap-

Tim Fulton 24:52Crocs. Let's say Croc-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 24:53Oh, sure

Tim Fulton 24:53... like, that it's just totally different than-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 24:55What do, what do snobs don't not like-

Tim Fulton 24:57Right, Crocs

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 24:57... in s- sneaker snob. Okay. They... Crocs came and said, "You know, we want you to work on this ad, and you're gonna be in the ad." You might... It's not necessarily, it might not be that you don't wanna be associated with it per se-

Tim Fulton 25:08Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 25:08... but you just feel like there's a little bit of a disingenuous-

Tim Fulton 25:12That's not me

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 25:12... kind of component there, you know?

Tim Fulton 25:14Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 25:15So, you know, again, I try not to live with these like hard lines, but, you know. And, and cigarettes is really kind of the only one-

Tim Fulton 25:23Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 25:24... that I have a hard line on. I just wouldn't do... You know, I've had to turn down things in the past that were-

Tim Fulton 25:29Like sponsored events and stuff like that

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 25:30... cigarette related and stuff.

Tim Fulton 25:32Yeah.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 25:32But anyway, so the, i- i- to, in a general sense, working in that commercial field, if I can find a way to do what I like and work with a brand that I would use-

Tim Fulton 25:45Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 25:45... you know, on a car ad that I... in a car that I would drive-

Tim Fulton 25:49Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 25:50... or a show that I would watch-

Tim Fulton 25:52Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 25:53... or any of these kind of things, that to me is kind of, if I can do enough of that to make a living and I can sell enough rec- I don't have to sell a lot of records.

Tim Fulton 26:03Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 26:03I can sell a small amount of records, I can tour a little bit, I can do the licensing work. I've got some other business venture things going on that, uh, is totally unrelated.

Tim Fulton 26:12Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 26:12If I can pay my bills-

Tim Fulton 26:14Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 26:14... and support my family and, you know-

Tim Fulton 26:17And be semi-comfortable

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 26:18... be semi-comfortable.

Tim Fulton 26:19And have some amount of security that if, you know, things dry up two months from now, I'm still probably gonna be okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 26:26Precisely.

Tim Fulton 26:26Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 26:27Then I, I can... I, I feel the need to effectively bypass any of these like big overarching conversations about... You know, I can opt out of having these conversations about, you know, commercial-

Tim Fulton 26:40Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 26:40... uh, you know, side of things versus the artistic side, and I can just... A- as long as the bills are paid, who cares?

Tim Fulton 26:47Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 26:47You know?

Tim Fulton 26:48And are you... My perception is that in arranging this interview, you sort of like manage your own time, manage your own sort of contracts, but do you handle most of that on your own?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 27:00I mean, I have, uh, what I've, what, what I would, I will say I have learned to do is outsource. Y- y- you know, I, I, I can't help but think of a... Was it Dick Cheney that had that quote about the three classifications of knowledge? There's the known knowns, there's the known unknowns, and then there's the unknown unknowns.

Tim Fulton 27:18Unknown knowns.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 27:19Un- un- yeah. I, to me, that's kind of the thing that comes to mind-

Tim Fulton 27:23Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 27:24... when I think about this because identifying when it's time to outsource things is, that's the critical component.

Tim Fulton 27:30Is it hard for you to sort of like... I imagine you don't retain an, a r- an attorney for every contract you're getting, but if you're working with a brand-new firm that you don't know the nature of their contract-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 27:43Yeah

Tim Fulton 27:43... you, "Hey, I'm gonna pay someone to look at this, and it's worth that because this may be an ongoing relationship."

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 27:49Exactly.

Tim Fulton 27:50Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 27:50And if the language is straightforward, sometimes you get a thing and in the, in the, in the long form looks like a deal memo, and you're like, "Cool." And if the, the whole job is worth 200 bucks at the end of the day, you're like, "Okay, whatever."

Tim Fulton 28:01Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 28:01"Cool."

Tim Fulton 28:02And this isn't gonna hurt me.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 28:03And then other times it's not.

Tim Fulton 28:04Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 28:04It, and so you just kinda make that call and, you know, I don't do... You know, I have, uh, two great accountants.

Tim Fulton 28:10Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 28:10You know, account, at, at the same firm here, actually really close.

Tim Fulton 28:14Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 28:14Um, I'm digressing a little bit, but one of the things that has been really great about being in Columbus is that it's been really easy to find like a great team of people in terms of like, you know, s- attorneys, accountants-

Tim Fulton 28:29Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 28:30... contractors, z- if I need to outsource layout and design stuff or photo stuff or any of these, any of the-

Tim Fulton 28:37Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 28:37... you know, all these things that I, you know-

Tim Fulton 28:39That's not your wheelhouse.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 28:40Exactly.

Tim Fulton 28:41Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 28:41It's the, the best way to put it. It's not in my wheelhouse. If I were to bend over backwards, maybe I could pull it off.

Tim Fulton 28:46Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 28:47But does it make sense for my time usage? No.

Tim Fulton 28:50Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 28:50It's really, it's a lot easier to find those things here in central Ohio than it was in Philly.

Tim Fulton 28:56Got it. How much do you... And this question may go nowhere, but I'm just curious, like you-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 29:01The best kinds

Tim Fulton 29:02... you talk about Philly and you say personal reasons, and like we talk about your child and you sort of, you're like, "Yeah, that's it," and then we move on. Or do you sort of insulate those, call it what it is, as having a certain amount of celebrity? Do you actually sort of insulate that part of your life? I'm just curious here.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 29:21Yeah. Uh, no, that's a fair question. And, and, and yes, I try to.

Tim Fulton 29:26Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 29:26You know?

Tim Fulton 29:27And it's out of respect for them, I imagine.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 29:29Exactly. Yeah.

Tim Fulton 29:29Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 29:30Precisely. Precisely, yeah. I wanna be respectful to, to my family, and so I don't, I try not to, you know, post faces of people on social media and s- and, and, and, and let me, you know, I feel, I feel compelled to, to throw this disclaimer in there and it's like I'm fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of celebrity-

Tim Fulton 29:51Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 29:51... as it applies to me.

Tim Fulton 29:53Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 29:53A- a- and it's one of the weird things about being in, you know, being, uh, being treated, being in a place in your career where you're occasionally treated as a celebrity-

Tim Fulton 30:03Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 30:04... because I don't-

Tim Fulton 30:05Does that make you uncomfortable? Like-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 30:07I wouldn't say it makes it me uncomfortable. There's, I feel like there's a... You know, when I was in Philly I used to go down to the studio and, and you'd bump into like- You know, the guys in The Roots or-

Tim Fulton 30:17Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 30:17... James Scott would be through there. Like, y- you know, I guess what I'm saying is, is like I've been around people that are way more famous than I am.

Tim Fulton 30:24Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 30:26So it's a little hard f- just from a, you know, a strictly logical, factual standpoint, it's hard for me to apply the idea of celebrity to me.

Tim Fulton 30:35Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 30:35I, I, I f- I feel like... Does that make sense?

Tim Fulton 30:38Absolutely. I just- I'm recalling, so I used to work for the Wexner Center, and we brought you in for an event probably, like, two years before I stopped working here, there. You were still living in Philly.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 30:49Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton 30:49And it was like, "RJ's coming. RJ's..." Like, we were, you know, it was, you know, there was some amount of cachet that you were coming back home to do that event. And so that, you have always been in my mind sort of that, like, you know, golden boy comes home. So-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 31:06And, and I appreciate that, and it makes me feel so good to hear that.

Tim Fulton 31:09Well, and it's because of the work-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 31:10I, I love the compliment

Tim Fulton 31:11... that you've done. Yeah.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 31:12And, and thank you for saying that. But hope- hopefully you can understand b- it, the both sides of that coin and that it's-

Tim Fulton 31:17Absolutely

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 31:18... it, you know. And the idea of celebrity is also a thing that I, I feel like, you know, it's not just for the sake of protecting my family, but it's also kinda like protecting myself, you know? It's, it's, uh... I have seen some v- very dark roads get taken-

Tim Fulton 31:37Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 31:37... with people who have, who have gone down that route of taking themselves seriously as a celebrity. So I kinda decided early on that I, I'm, to, to put it blunt, I'm effectively intending to refuse to acknowledge the concept of celebrity as it applies to myself.

Tim Fulton 31:55Got it.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 31:55Because I can't even get... I've- it's gotta stay at arm's length, man.

Tim Fulton 32:00You don't want to obviously go down that path or even see it.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 32:04I do not at all. I, exactly. I do not. And, uh, uh, 'cause I, I've seen firsthand some... It can lead to some very dark places-

Tim Fulton 32:11Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 32:12... you know, if you get yourself invested in that idea and, you know.

Tim Fulton 32:18Got it.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 32:18In, in ways I kinda see it as playing with fire to take it-

Tim Fulton 32:21Yeah

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 32:21... seriously, honestly.

Tim Fulton 32:22No, absolutely. Just to switch up a bit-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 32:25Sure

Tim Fulton 32:25... a lot of your work, at least artistically, has been collaborations. Can you talk about, like, sort of not looking at specific projects, but sort of the kind of people that you look to work with or the, the things that inspire you to do that?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 32:41Sure, sure.

Tim Fulton 32:42A lot of it seems to be a part of sort of the, the hip-hop culture that you came from. It's like that's, those collaborations are key to m- making anything successful.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 32:52Yeah. Uh, it, it, that's a part of it. You know, one of the funnest things about being... When I look back to when I first started making hip-hop records was that there was this... You know, you'd work with a, with, uh, i- in the context of a rap group.

Tim Fulton 33:11Mm-hmm.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 33:12Y- you know, at, at its most basic level, without a rapper you don't have a rap song, but nobody's gonna buy an a cappella rap record, you know?

Tim Fulton 33:21Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 33:21You also need a beat.

Tim Fulton 33:22Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 33:23You need some instrumentation. You need something going on to rap to. And when reduced down to these, you know, very basic building blocks, kinda the beauty of, of it is that, uh, and, and I, I g- I recognize that you can argue against this on creative merits in a number of different ways.

Tim Fulton 33:43Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 33:43But kinda the beauty of it is it's like w- if I were to take myself back to, you know, the mid-'90s, any rapper in Columbus and any producer/DJ/guy who could make a beat-

Tim Fulton 33:56Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 33:57... that was making rap music in Columbus, Ohio, you could stick them in a room together, and they could make a rap song within 15 minutes just based on what they do and what they had.

Tim Fulton 34:09Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 34:09Because, you know, it, it, it-

Tim Fulton 34:11'Cause they're sort of pulling out of their toolboxes at that point. It's not-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 34:15And, and, and, and in part, yes, and, and even more specifically, no rapper worth their salt doesn't have a 16-bar verse locked and loaded, ready to go over any beat.

Tim Fulton 34:28Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 34:29So if you were to take Bob Dylan and s- stuff him in a room with the, the, the guys in, I don't know, whatever, pick a band-

Tim Fulton 34:37Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 34:37... Guns N' Roses or Van Halen or something like that, they're not gonna be able to produce a song in 10 or 15 minutes.

Tim Fulton 34:44Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 34:45But a rapper and a producer, he's the rapper, I'm the DJ-

Tim Fulton 34:49Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 34:50... they can, you know? So that to me is kind of like the -

Tim Fulton 34:55It's the nature of the genre that you work in, that, like, those collaborations are going to happen.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 35:00Yeah, and that was an exciting, uh, uh... When I look back on, and to now to some degree, you know, the, I guess the novelty's mildly worn off of just that part of it. But that makes it, and that makes the collaborative process really exciting when you can, you know, the, the wheels are pre-greased, so to speak, when you go to work with somebody.

Tim Fulton 35:16Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 35:17So that's how a lot of rap music has gotten made in history and very, fairly quickly as well.

Tim Fulton 35:25Right. Well, I guess what's interesting to me is that there's certainly collaborators on your specific albums.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 35:32Yeah.

Tim Fulton 35:33But you've put out two albums that I think of specifically, the Blueprint record and the STS record, that they're co-billed, basically-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 35:42Yeah

Tim Fulton 35:42... 'cause you guys created it all together.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 35:44Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton 35:45That seems different to me, and I'm, it, it may be because of my lack of knowledge of the space.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 35:50No, you're right. You're, you're, you're... You mean different in that it's just one-

Tim Fulton 35:55You, you-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 35:55Two, two artists being co-billed?

Tim Fulton 35:56Yeah, exactly.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 35:57Yeah. Y- you are right. That's, that was the thing that I think... AC Alone and I made a record, um, that was billed as AC Alone and RJD2-

Tim Fulton 36:07Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 36:07... in 2006, and that's where the Mad Men theme came out of that record. And that co-billing, uh, I don't believe we were the... I, I'm, uh, virtually certain there were- ... people who had co-billed, if you will, records before that.

Tim Fulton 36:24Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 36:25But to me it just seemed logical because it, it, it, you know, the only other choice was to come up with a group name, and that's-

Tim Fulton 36:32Yeah

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 36:32... in some ways what we did with, with the Soul Position group is, you know-

Tim Fulton 36:35Yeah

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 36:35... come up with a group name. And, you know, and, and Al and I, we didn't see it as much of a, as, as, as a let's do this one project and then, you know, be done with each other. Y- so that was kinda why it made more sense to-

Tim Fulton 36:48To be a group

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 36:49... yeah, effectively start a group.

Tim Fulton 36:50'Cause you could effectively carry that forward and do more things with it.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 36:53Precisely, which we did.

Tim Fulton 36:55Got it.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 36:55But i- over time, I think this idea of co-billing has gotten more and more popular.

Tim Fulton 37:01Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 37:02And I think it makes a lot of sense because when, you know, when you're, particularly when it comes to hip hop, there's a both a, an, an ease of the process as well as the net effect is beneficial from, from the point of view of the art.

Tim Fulton 37:19Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 37:19There's a lot of advantages to a rapper picking one producer and working with that producer for an entire album.

Tim Fulton 37:25Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 37:25You get a consistent palette. If you're a vocalist, R&B singer, rapper, whatever-

Tim Fulton 37:32Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 37:32... it can be a challenge to make an album that feels cohesive when you're working with 15 different producers.

Tim Fulton 37:38'Cause they're each doing a track and they're not... Got it.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 37:41They're not aiming at the same thing, and, you know. So there's been a, a number of records that have been made that as an album they feel quite disparate. They can feel very disjointed when you have 15 people, you know, envisioning the sonic bed for what you're doing as a vocalist.

Tim Fulton 37:58Got it. And do you prefer to work in that sort of long form space where you're making a whole album?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 38:05Well, I'll say I definitely take it, I approach it differently. Uh, I, I don't know if I'd say... For a long time I did prefer it.

Tim Fulton 38:14Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 38:14I mean, I don't wanna imply that I'm opposed to just doing one song on a record.

Tim Fulton 38:19Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 38:19You know? I did a song on a, a MF Doom record at, that he made a record under Viktor Vaughn called Vaudeville Villain.

Tim Fulton 38:26Mm-hmm.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 38:27And I, that was a record where he had a bunch of different producers, and I was just a guy making one beat, and that was fun and it was cool, and I, I like that record and I'm happy with how it came out.

Tim Fulton 38:36Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 38:36But at the end of the day, it's akin to getting hired to, as a session player. You're just along for the ride. You have n- It's not-

Tim Fulton 38:44You don't have any control. You don't... Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 38:47Yeah.

Tim Fulton 38:47And you prefer, again, back to, you know, how you do business and sort of how you manage the agency that you have within your own life in terms of how much you work, are gonna accuse you of, you know, wanting to have a little bit of control.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 39:01That's fine.

Tim Fulton 39:02You know?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 39:02Yeah, yeah. And, and it, it's not as much that I'm a control freak as it is when you have control over an entire album, you can start making decisions that you just can't make when you're one guy amongst many.

Tim Fulton 39:18Mm-hmm.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 39:19And those decisions to me are really where you get into kind of the, the meat and the, the good stuff, the good parts of creativity when it comes to making an album. You know, you can, you, you can take the luxury of contouring songs according to other things that are already in place on the album.

Tim Fulton 39:38Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 39:38And that-

Tim Fulton 39:38Well, and you know all of that.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 39:40Exactly.

Tim Fulton 39:40Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 39:40Yeah, you're the one making that decision, so you can say, "Okay, well, right here we need a section where there's just, there's, you know, just drums, or no drums at all," or, "It's, it's interlude time," or, "This, this song should only be 30 seconds," or any of these thi- those types of decisions that can really make an album impacting.

Tim Fulton 39:59Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 40:00You know?

Tim Fulton 40:00As a whole piece.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 40:01Yeah.

Tim Fulton 40:01Yeah.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 40:02I, I look at something like Paul's Boutique as a, as a prime example of a record where that record could never be made with, you know, 15 captains trying to drive the ship.

Tim Fulton 40:14Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 40:14It could only be made... Just because of the nature of it, it's, it's just so weird and, and it has a flow to it. It has a... Gosh, it's a hard one to describe.

Tim Fulton 40:24Well, and it goes in a lot of different directions, but it's still cohesive.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 40:28Exactly.

Tim Fulton 40:28And that's what you're saying. Yeah.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 40:30Yeah, yeah. And it, and it, and it f- it has these... There's just production decisions that were made in the making of that record. You know, sticking little snippets here and there and, and all over the place, and just the general feel of how it's put together rides from the very first second to the very last second of the record.

Tim Fulton 40:47Gotcha.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 40:48And, and that's, that's a powerful... It's a good place to be y- you know. In the same way I, I, I look at how a singer-songwriter or somebody like that, when they're in charge of their whole album, they can know exactly what's gonna end up on that record. You know, I, I, in some ways I think you could look at the similarity between, like, the boy band era of pop music when-

Tim Fulton 41:11Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 41:11... the band wasn't really... You know, you look at, like, I don't know, whatever, Backstreet Boys or something like that, like the-

Tim Fulton 41:16When they weren't in control of... They didn't have that agency of what was happening.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 41:20Yeah, yeah.

Tim Fulton 41:21Yeah.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 41:21You don't listen to one of those records and feel like you're really getting the vision of a guy-

Tim Fulton 41:25Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 41:25... that's in the band. You f- it sounds like a record that's kinda, like, assembled in, in ways, and they're, and they're... The band is a component.

Tim Fulton 41:33Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 41:33But, you know, y- you look at something like, uh, I don't know, OK Computer by Radiohead or-

Tim Fulton 41:40Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 41:40... you know, any of the Sufjan Stevens records or, or Nas, Illmatic, or any of these records where, you know, you can really kinda see, it feels like the vision of the artist.

Tim Fulton 41:50Got it. And that's the way you wanna work.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 41:52Yes.

Tim Fulton 41:53Yeah.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 41:53Uh, yeah.

Tim Fulton 41:54Well, it's one thing that in the artists, either be they musicians or visual artists or even gallerists, the ones who sort of have gotten to the point that I've interviewed that are working in this space and it's not something they do on the side and they're independent, this goes back to the very first one I did, artist named Brian Christopher Moss, his sort of tagline for himself was, "Know your value and value your agency." Of like, I know what I need to get paid in order to live, and I'm going to work up until that point, and everything else gets to be mine. That I'm willing to sacrifice to an extent, but that I'm going to put a value on my own control. So

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 42:39I, yeah, there's a... I mean, there's a lot of truth to that, you know? I, I think it's, it's, it's wise words.

Tim Fulton 42:46But it's also not an easy spot to get to.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 42:50No

Tim Fulton 42:50To be able to have that control over your own, you know, time or creativity or your output and not being directed by others.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 42:58Sure, sure. And, and, you know, when I, it, I've heard this phrase know, know your value m- many, many times before. And, and I, frankly speaking, I feel two ways about it because at its core, when you're looking at what that really looks like in a creative field-

Tim Fulton 43:14Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 43:15... to me, I can't divorce this idea from the basic issue of monetizing art. And that itself is a thing that in some ways I kind of, just for me-

Tim Fulton 43:31Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 43:31... I'm not speaking for anybody else, but just for me, as a standalone philosophical idea, I feel like the jury is out as to, you know, whether art deserves to be-

Tim Fulton 43:42Monetized

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 43:42... monetized.

Tim Fulton 43:43Right. But you certainly are privileged in that you get to make your work and you are compensated for it.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 43:51Totally. And-

Tim Fulton 43:52And, and people enjoying it should contribute some certain amount to whether that's listening to advertisements in between Spotify or getting, you know, there should be some monetization for the art.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 44:05Absolutely.

Tim Fulton 44:05But-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 44:06Yes

Tim Fulton 44:06... you're saying art for monetization's sake.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 44:08No, no, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying.

Tim Fulton 44:10Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 44:10I'm, I'm, I'm actually saying that, well, I think that that is one where I feel like it's pretty safe. The art, art for monetization's sake, that can be fraught with difficulty.

Tim Fulton 44:20Yeah.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 44:20I mean it in a different way. The one that, the part of it that I struggle with is I know that at its core, for me, almost every artist I know, if they couldn't make a living doing it, they would still make art. So what that says to me is what if art is in some ways more a, a, a function of the human experience-

Tim Fulton 44:49Absolutely

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 44:50... than it is a-

Tim Fulton 44:50Yeah

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 44:51... a commercial endeavor. And y- y- you were, you were exactly right when, when you said that I'm, I'm privileged, and I would, I would, I would use the word lucky enough, but I, uh, to, to, to make a living doing art.

Tim Fulton 45:03Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 45:05I feel compelled to ask myself the question when this topic comes up, do I live in some kind of historical blip, an anomaly? Uh, where when people look back 300 years from, from now-

Tim Fulton 45:21Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 45:21... and, uh, uh, uh, are they gonna see this as some kind of historical anomaly in, in that people could make a living out of art?

Tim Fulton 45:29I sure hope not.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 45:30I hope not too. And I, and I don't think that the, the cultural ramifications of artists not being able to make a living doing art are, are good in any way.

Tim Fulton 45:38Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 45:39But just because they're not good, does that mean that they are... The idea of that being a possibility to be this kind of like fundamental tenet of capitalism-

Tim Fulton 45:51Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 45:51... co- or commerce even.

Tim Fulton 45:52Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 45:53I don't know. I can't answer that with, with complete-

Tim Fulton 45:57With-

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 45:57... confidence.

Tim Fulton 45:58Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 45:58With 100% certainty.

Tim Fulton 46:00Yeah, absolutely.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 46:01Does that make sense?

Tim Fulton 46:02Yeah. Yes. I think so.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 46:05I really, really want artists to be able to make a living doing art, and whether it's through patronage, and how that monetization happens, I frankly don't care.

Tim Fulton 46:15Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 46:15The, and I, and I think that absolutely the world is gonna be a much worse off place if artists can't find a way to make a living.

Tim Fulton 46:24But what's more important is that people keep making art.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 46:29Well-

Tim Fulton 46:29And that, a- and because that's a, a, a key part of the human experience, that will continue to happen.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 46:34Yeah, that's the part that I frankly think is isn't, it's, it's not, it's not worthy of discussion because it's not elective.

Tim Fulton 46:40Mm-hmm.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 46:41Does that make sense?

Tim Fulton 46:41Yes.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 46:42If every artist that is making a living out of it wakes up tomorrow, they can't make a, a dime off it, and they have to get a 9:00 to 5:00 job and come home and make their art, that's what they're gonna do. That's what we've been doing since the dawn of time-

Tim Fulton 46:55Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 46:55... as, as human beings. So that part is f- to, frankly, to me, it's not even worth discussing 'cause art's gonna get made. The question to me is whether, what are we gonna do to support art? What are we going to do to facilitate artists, consciously or unconsciously as a society-

Tim Fulton 47:13Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 47:14... to continue to make art? And that's, that's to me is the, the X factor. And, and I want that to happen. I don't really care if it's through, you know, kind of like what, what I, what, what I understand to be sort of the, like, 14th, 15th, 16th century patronage system-

Tim Fulton 47:31Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 47:32... of some kind of like wealthy benefactors, or if it is through direct monetization of the commodity that you create as an artist. I don't really care. I hope it happens.

Tim Fulton 47:44Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 47:45But a- again, I also, I mean, one of, one of the fields that I, I like to read in my own, my free time is, is, you know, macroeconomics, and I, I can't sit here and say with confidence that it, it is, uh, built into that, that system of, of, of commerce that we live in now.

Tim Fulton 48:03Well, and those theories, as sort of an armchair economist, those theories don't take those things into account. You know, there's these, at least from a microeco- economic level, there's this, you know, the assumption of perfect information, assumption of perfect mobility, and the ability that anybody can go anywhere they want, and it's just not true.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 48:23Yeah.

Tim Fulton 48:24And it is these, at least in our current point in time- There's the commodity aspect, but then also, at least in Columbus, organizations like GCAC and venues that are sort of sacrificing the bottom line in order to put out good work and exhibit good work. And, you know, the, I'll call it a donor model surrounding places like the Wexner Center being able to bring through work that is-- that people should see, and that, that both elevates that human experience and elevates the work itself.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 49:00Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and I think they're all great. You know, w- uh, all, uh, uh, that, you know, direct monetization-

Tim Fulton 49:06Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 49:06... the donor model, the, the, the-

Tim Fulton 49:08And it's gonna be some combination of all of them.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 49:12Yeah. And, and everyone who is, is, is putting up o- one red cent on this is fighting the good fight.

Tim Fulton 49:20Mm-hmm.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 49:20Is fight-- You know, I, that is, I, I, I think that we're... I don't think that can be disputed. The question to me is, the, the interesting question to me is when the rubber meets the road, you gotta look at, like, what are these things going-- what are these artists going to actually experience in the moment? So, you know, if, if your standard of living, living in Columbus, Ohio, is you need to earn X amount of dollars-

Tim Fulton 49:48Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 49:48... you know, we can talk in lofty ideals all we want, but at the end of the day, if, if a, if an artist or a painter or a photographer can't make basic rent doing-

Tim Fulton 49:59Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 49:59... through do- through any of those means, then culturally, that's obviously, that's, uh, not a good situation.

Tim Fulton 50:07Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 50:08But when you look at what the solutions are, it, it, it gets fractured. It gets, uh, difficult-

Tim Fulton 50:16Okay

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 50:17... in my opinion, you know?

Tim Fulton 50:19Any other reflections on being back in Columbus and what you see now in terms of what Columbus seems to be doing well? You sort of talked about the end result in that there seems to be more folks who are able to do the work they wanna do, whether that be in a cr- creative endeavor or in an entrepreneurial aspect, and do it here. Have you seen ev- any evidence of what has caused that?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 50:43Gosh, n- no.

Tim Fulton 50:45Okay.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 50:45You know-

Tim Fulton 50:45Are there things we could do better then?

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 50:48You know, I think that when I look at art, I feel like I don't think you can ever have enough funding, so to speak-

Tim Fulton 51:00Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 51:01... for arts in, in a, in a general sense. So in terms of, like, what the city can be doing better, you know, I think there's always improvement for that. I think there's a personal improvement that we can all do. I think that we can all be looking at, you know, what we're participating in, what we're supporting. Y- you know, it, it's kind of shocking.

Tim Fulton 51:22Be better, be better patrons, basically.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 51:24Be better patron-- Yeah, be- better patrons, better informed consumers.

Tim Fulton 51:29Mm-hmm.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 51:29You know? I mean, we, we would, we wouldn't think twice about going to a Blue Jackets game and blowing, you know, 30 or 40, 50 bucks. Well, some people, not we.

Tim Fulton 51:38Yeah.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 51:38You know, not myself, but you know what I mean. Like, there's a lot of people in town wouldn't think twice about blowing 30 or 40 or 50 bucks on beers at a, at a Blue Jackets game.

Tim Fulton 51:48Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 51:48And that's fine. That's cool. But we would think entirely differently about spending 15 bucks to get into a show or $10 on, you know, somebody's record or 50 bucks on a piece of art that someone... You know, the man-hours inherent in that art is, you know, 200, you know-

Tim Fulton 52:07Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 52:07... 150. Who knows?

Tim Fulton 52:08Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 52:09You know? So I think that we can all... There's, uh, and I struggle with this too. I, I'm constantly thinking about how, you know, I apply m- money that I earn in these fields.

Tim Fulton 52:22Right.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 52:23But, you know, the, uh, it's what I think is makes it really fascinat- the story of Columbus really fascinating is that when I look at this change that happened when I was gone, I can't see any narrative for it that is some kind of, like, grand plan. Like, I can't see how it would be orchestrated. I don't think socially you could orchestrate-

Tim Fulton 52:44Mm-hmm

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 52:45... such thing. You know? I'd, I'd, I, I think it'd be impossible to say with complete certainty any causal links-

Tim Fulton 52:54Right

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 52:54... as to what happened there. I don't n- I, and we can all come up with our own, you know, hypotheses around it, but I don't know. You know? I think it's kinda, what's really interesting to me is that it's like I, it just, I... And maybe it's just a perception I have, but I really, it does seem to be-

Tim Fulton 53:14I don't think you're wrong there.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 53:15Okay.

Tim Fulton 53:16Yeah.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 53:16Good.

Tim Fulton 53:17Thanks for your time.

RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn) 53:18Thanks for having me. It's a great talk.

Tim Fulton 53:29Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite DJ. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.