RJD2

Def Jux has been making some serious noise over the past couple of years, but it wasn’t until RJD2 dropped his Deadringer debut that the underground hip-hop label really started to take the main stage. And there was good reason for everyone to go nuts over the producers, as this in-between album EP shows. "The Horror” is the lead-off track on Deadringer and is an intense sonic wave of noise that demands you take notice, but what RJ does so well is laying down soulful instrumental grooves and there’s plenty of that to go around on this EP. Most of the cuts that make up The Horror are instrumental versions of previously-released songs as well as the B-sides from his Let The Good Times Roll twelve-inch, including "Bus Stop Bitties” and "Counseling.” The real jewels lie in the reworkings that RJ has constructed, most notably the incredible remix of "Final Frontier” with fellow Def Jux-ers Aesop Rock, Vast Aire from Cannibal Ox and Murs. There’s also a new track in "Sell The World” but it’s nothing to get too excited about with its lazy piano tinkering, abstract slide guitar samples and choir vocals. The real goods are in the remixes and B-sides, which are bound to bump RJD2 up the list of hip-hop’s elite producers.