One of the things which real hip hop brings to the table is the sound of the street (uh oh - what does this cliche mean exactly?). Moody, grinding basslines and short snatches of samples and tunes here and there repeating again and again over a moderately slow beat. For me, this represents the grimness of life in a big bad city when you’re very poor somewhere in New York or LA or London or wherever 20 million people are crammed into a couple of square miles of space. Waking up in a tower block before the sun is up, going to work in a garage (or factory- probably in another tower block), getting paid next to nothing and then going home after the sun has gone down to sit in front of the TV cause you’re too poor to afford anything else during the week (ok ok I exaggerate but you catch my drift).

But whaaat? All that from just what is essentially a 4/4 beat comprising of a hi hat, a snare and a bassline getting repeated over and over again?

You betcha… if your name is RJD2. This producer manages to do something which the majority of hip hop producers fail to do: make hip hop sound original. Don’t ask me how he does it otherwise I would be doing it myself, but as far as programming is concerned it ain’t particularly complex or cutting edge, but it’s just how everything fits together and varies just enough every bar to keep you interested. And although he has produced stuff with other rappers like Megahertz and most recently Aceyalone, who I think is great by the way, any rapping over his breaks sometimes disguises the fact that RJD2’s tracks can stand up perfectly well on their own. If I were to describe it, I’d say that it sounds like old motown which has grown up and got sad, disillusioned and slightly bitter. This man should score a soundtrack (and put over-hyped DJ Shadow to shame).

Check out his site to see what I’m talking about.