RJD2 and Supastition push each other to new heights on ‘According To…’

North Carolina rapper Supastition said he first crossed paths with the Columbus producer RJD2 in the early 2000s at one of the legendary hip-hop nights at the long-defunct campus dive Bernie’s Bagels & Deli. 

Nearly two decades would pass before the two would first collaborate, however, with Supastition contributing vocals to the song “Life of the Party,” off the 2022 RJD2/STS album Escape from Sweet Auburn.

“I did the verse on that and kind of drummed up the courage to ask him for a beat in return,” said Supastition, who joined RJD2 for an interview ahead of the duo’s set at a reborn 2×2 Hip-Hop Festival, which takes place at Land-Grant Brewing Company from noon to 11 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 29, and also features performances from Illogic/pRODUCT and Vada Azeem/JaySwifa, among many others. “And I thought he’d be like, ‘Man, get the hell out of here.’ But he sent me a gang of tracks, and we started working from there, and it just clicked.”

The results of this collaboration surfaced in February with the release of According To…, an eclectic, deeply felt affair that incorporates playful boasts (“Back Talk,” built around a stuttered RJD2 beat that hits like a rabbit punch to the ribs) and raw-nerve reflections on mortality like the album-closing “A Beautiful Ending,” which surfaced for Supastition following the 2022 death of childhood friend and producer Eric Hood. “Thirty years as a brother and mentor,” he raps. “My life will never be the same henceforth.”

Shortly thereafter, Supastition heard from his long-absent biological father, who passed away just weeks after he reached out – a death that informs “The Mourning After,” a track that paints a vividly different picture of loss from the one that emerges on the shattered, intensely vulnerable “A Beautiful Ending.” “I felt nothing,” Supastition raps, his detachment having been forged by the decisions his father made as a younger man to not be involved in the lives of his children. 

These emotional bookends were among the first three songs Supastition completed with RJD2, following the more pugilistic “Carte Blanche,” a celebration of perseverance that finds the emcee reflecting on having overcome struggles both in life and within the music industry at large. 

“When I got those demos back, probably my first thought was these need to be on the record, they need to be out in the world,” RJD2 said. “And as a producer, I feel like I need to treat them very tenderly, delicately. And my focus becomes on the arrangement, and not being too heavy-handed. I just want to create the framework for him to do his thing.”

The demos also made clear to the producer that the rapper was then going through it emotionally, and Supastition said RJD2 asked him if he needed to take some time away to grieve. “And I said, yeah, I definitely need some time,” said the emcee, who proceeded to take a couple of months away, emerging with a pair of cathartic solo EPs that helped him to exorcise the sense of loss that sent him temporarily reeling. 

After reconnecting, the two adopted a patient approach to creating, sending tracks back and forth, making edits and adjustments, and finding new wrinkles that could push both to explore new creative frontiers. “To me, the fun happens … when you’re getting into a place where you’re pushing the boundaries of what you perceive to be the other person’s comfort zone,” said RJD2, who challenged Supastition to stretch his boom-bap roots on harder-hitting cuts such as “Beasts Per Minute,” a buzzing, dense, up-tempo banger that finds the rapper navigating the beat like a speeding car weaving its way through rush hour highway traffic. “And one of the beauties of making this record is that once he walks through a few of those doors, it’s like, okay, cool, you’re open to exploring. … And then we can keep pushing that boundary until we get to something that we might not have envisioned.”

While the sonics can spin into farther-off realms, Supastition’s lyrics embrace the day-to-day realities that come with being a father and husband on the other side of 50, his verses wrestling with mortality, acknowledging this could be his last go-round, and prioritizing his wins as a dad over industry accolades. “My kids call me Father of the Year,” he boasts on “One Last Time,” sounding like a man immensely proud to wear the title.

“I went on my last tour in 2015, and then I made the conscious decision that I’m going to be the dad that’s there for my kids, and I never want to miss another birthday party when I’m out on the road,” said Supastition, who said he took some playful needling from his daughter when he let his kids know he was recording new music. “And she was like, ‘Dad, what are you going to rap about? All you do is go to work and make smoothies.’ … But, you know, when you get to our age – and not to say we’re old by any means – you just want honesty. As a person, I don’t live vicariously through any rapper. Those years are far behind me now. I don’t care about battling emcees. We’re brothers. We’re all battling hypertension. We’re battling high cholesterol. We’re battling trying to balance lives and families.”

For Supastition, this final point gained a new dimension following the passing of his father, who on his death bed told his son that he had a sister, the revelation of which sent shockwaves that can be felt in the way he recounts the scene within “The Mourning After.” “My sister?” he raps, a beat later adding, “I didn’t even know she existed.”

“And when he passed away, it was like, now I’ve got a sister and nieces and nephews,” Supastition said. “And as I said in the song, now I’ve gotta add another chapter to a closed book. I thought that story would be over, and now I’ve got this life that carries on.”