I first heard RJD2 in a living room in Germany when I was fourteen. I was listening to some early windows incarnation of a Pandora-like internet radio station set to electronica. ‘Ghostwriter’ came on and I remember stopping whatever it was that I was doing for the entire five minute and nineteen second duration of the song just to listen to its grace and majesty. Love was born that day. Six years and many address changes later I found myself finally going to my first RJD2 show at the Paradise Rock Club in the ever-so hipster Allston. Opening for him was a band called Icebird. I was shocked when they came out, though, because RJ himself was at the front. He came to the mic, introduced himself as “RJ”, gave a timid shout out to Boston, and then started in on some indie rock. Where was the hip hop?! Icebird’s sound is not bad by any means; I was just not expecting relatively tame indie rock to greet my ears when I came to this hip hop show. The best way to describe it is if you took a band like The Heavy (known for their songs How Do You Like Me Now, and Short Change Hero) and then put an RJD2 record on in the background. I even got the impression that RJD2 was just using the band as a way to try out new keyboard riffs for his solo albums. After being on stage for 45 minutes, they stopped, RJ said thank you and left the stage. I was puzzled, to say the least. For a few moments I thought I had just seen RJD2’s transition from hip hop to indie rock and feared that I had spent my hard earned money on the wrong band. I was
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