RJD2, the project of Ohio-based hip-hop producer Ramble Jon Krohn, inspired by DJ Shadow, turned Deadringer (Def Jux, 2002) into a tour de force of cinematic collages of samples and wicked stuttering beats, dilating and deforming Sixties soundtracks, smooth jazz, soul themes, gloomy atmospheres. This results in smooth and elegant songs like Smoke & Mirrors, 2 More Dead, Good Times Roll Pt 2 and especially Ghostwriter . All in all, the songs with guest rappers (The Horror, Final Frontier, F.H.H.) are the least interesting. Occasionally, he trespasses into the surreal, like in Chicken-Bone Circuit, and one wishes he had stayed there.

The double-disc The Horror (Definitive Jux, 2003) is a remix album.

Since We Last Spoke (Def Jux, 2004) virtually abandoned rap music (no gues rappers), crafting a stylistic survey of the Sixties and Seventies. Instead of bypassing the conventional song format, it uses it as the launching pad for his production experiments.

The Third Hand (2007) is an "experiment" of pop music (live instruments and vocals), that is only occasionally engaging (Have Mercy).

That marked the beginning of a very rapid decline through shallow pop-funk albums such as: The Colossus (2010), its vocal remix Inversions of the Colossus (2010), More Is Than Isn't (2013), Dame Fortune (2016), The Fun Ones (2020), Visions Out of Limelight (2024).