Dame Fortune is the eclectic sixth album from veteran producer and crate digger extraordinaire RJD2, out March 25th on RJ’s Electrical Connections. It’s a wondrous beast, recorded over the past year while living in Philadelphia, before returning to his hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Streaked with Philly’s rep for deeply felt soul music while maintaining a playful sense of adventurousness, Dame Fortune features guest vocalists Son Little (aka Aaron Livingston) and frequent collaborator Phonte, while also presenting the bombastic hip-hop sound that marked RJD2’s breakthrough album, Deadringer, and even an orchestral composition for the societal unrest experienced in this day and age (called “PF Day One”…the PF standing for “Post Ferguson”).
“Living in Philly provided a context for a lot of soul music that I had liked,” RJD2 says on the city’s influence on Dame Fortune‘s sound. “I didn’t have any cultural context for this music that I liked—it was just music that I had stumbled across as a beat making nerd. Philly was a place where there were enough people who had the same musical vocabulary that I did, which made the music more than something I had just discovered on my own.”
Listen below to debut single, “Peace of What,” (below) which features Jordan Brown and draws inspiration from 1990s rap legends Main Source’s 1991 single “Peace Is Not the Word to Play.” “When I hear people talk of peace in America, the discrepancy between our words and our actions can get fatiguing,” he says on the inspiration behind the song. “I was trying to reflect the experience of people I know, which often feels like ‘We’re not ACTUALLY trying to do anything about this problem in our country.’”
RJD2 will tour throughout 2016 in support of Dame Fortune and his 20-year-plus-career.
DAME FORTUNE TRACKLISTING:
01. A Portal Inward
02. The Roaming Hoard
03. Peace of What (featuring Jordan Brown)
04. The Sheboygan Left
05. A New Theory
06. We Come Alive (featuring Son Little)
07. PF, Day One
08. Saboteur (featuring Phonte Coleman)
09. Your Nostalgic Heart and Lung
10. Up In The Clouds (featuring Blueprint)
11. Band of Matron Saints (featuring Josh Krajcik)
12. Portals Outward
RJD2 TOUR DATES:
Tue. Jan. 12 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Bowl
Wed. Jan. 13 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Bowl
Sat. Jan. 30 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre
Sat. Feb. 20 – Austin, TX @ Empire Garage
Sat. Feb. 27 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Mr. Smalls Theatre
Fri. March 11 – Lancaster, PA @ Chameleon Club
Fri. April 8 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom
Sat. April 9 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
Fri. April 29 – Chicago, IL @ Metro
Sat. May 28 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
Sun. May 29 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
