Meet

Soul Position

WHO ARE THEY?

This Columbus, Ohio duo may boast a (dead) ringer in critically acclaimed DJ/producer RJD2, but Soul Position is a 50-50 joint effort with his more obscure partner Blueprint. Combining avant-garde beats with down-to-earth rhymes, the pair first joined forces in 2001 and a couple of songs soon turned into an EP and then an album over the next two years, as well as underground hit "Final Frontier" off RJ's 2002 debut.

Though they've both released solo albums since, the group reunited for Soul Position's funky 2006 follow-up, Things Go Better with RJ and Al.

SAY SAYONARA TO SAMPLES?

RJD2 became famous for combining samples into cohesive instrumentals, but some of the new Soul Position songs, such as the one-night-stand saga "Blame it on the Jager," find RJ easing away from his obsession with rare records in favour of recording with outmoded equipment.

"The goal of the whole gear-buying thing is to come up with good ways to engineer, mic and record old instruments and not be so tied into having these samples," he says while dropping off preamps at a repair shop.

"I could have gone the route of spending that much more time looking for super-über-obscure records and finding ways to completely manipulate the hell out of them so that they're not at all recognizable. [But] I decided to go the other way. I've lived in that limited world for way too long now. I'm over it."

ONE PRODUCER, ONE ALBUM

Before the era of the super-producer doling out a beat to every major MC, rap albums were predominantly crafted in-house. Soul Position may be a throwback to that golden age, but RJ admits it's a tricky feat to pull off.

"I don't want to hear 13 versions of the same song on somebody's album," he says, "and that's where the challenge comes in: you want to have variety and keep a record interesting but at the same time you want to have some cohesion. You need to balance those things so that it's not too boring or too all over the place."

ALL ABOUT THE COLLABORATIONS

Though it's been two years since RJ's sophomore solo album, Since We Last Spoke, he hasn't slowed down. His recent work includes remixing everyone from Massive Attack and Go! Team to Fall Out Boy and Astrud Gilberto; making a mash-up with Diplo; providing beats for Def Jux rapper Cage; and producing all of Aceyalone's recent Magnificent City.

"I'll go for it when an opportunity for collaboration comes up," RJ says. "But it moves in cycles and I'm just coming out of one. If I work too much on my own thing, I feel like I'm beating the same dead horse over and over and when I'm collaborating with people too much I'm like, 'I'm tired of arguing with you, I want to just go and do my own thing.'" JOSHUA OSTROFF

SOUL POSITION PLAY THE HORSESHOE TAVERN (370 QUEEN W) APRIL 13. $13.50 FROM ROTATE THIS, SOUNDSCAPES, HORSESHOE, TICKETMASTER.