RJD2 Recruits Son Little for Soulful, Stadium-Sized ‘We Come Alive’
Philadelphia hip-hop producer/cratedigger RJD2 aims for stadium-rock soul with “We Come Alive,” the latest single from his upcoming LP, Dame Fortune. Guest singer Son Little croons over booming, Phil Collins-sized tom-toms, jazzy piano and psychedelic lead guitar.
The duo previously collaborated for a 2011 LP, The Abandoned Lullaby, under the Icebird moniker, and they’ve harnessed that chemistry for “We Come Alive.” “Our musical tastes are very similar – he can go from Black Sabbath to [reggae singer] Dennis Brown and not miss a beat. We work very well together,” RJD2 said in a statement.
Stream “We Come Alive” below:
While the producer has explored hip-hop, psychedelia and singer-songwriter styles on previous albums, he’s absorbed himself in soul music – particularly Philadelphia soul – for Dame Fortune, out March 25th via RJ’s Electrical Connections.
“Living in Philly provided a context for a lot of soul music that I had liked,” he said in a statement. “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.”
The 12-track LP is also inspired by modern social unrest, including an orchestral composition (“PF, Day One,” which stands for “Post-Ferguson”) and lush lead single “Peace of What,” which finds guest vocalist Jordan Brown gazing out at a “land of duck and cover.”