RZA’s debut studio album “Bobby Digital in Stereo” was executive produced by music mogul turned hotelier Jon Baker. The album was released on his Gee Street label along with V2 on November 24, 1998. It’s a superhero experimental concept album based on a story featuring RZA rhyming as an alter-ego named ‘Bobby Digital’. It was certified Gold on February 5, 1999, by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It is also certified Gold in Canada on December 16, 1998 for selling more than 40,000 units in that country.
“Working with RZA was a creative roller coaster-to this day we maintain a friendship. Two Gravediggaz albums then his first solo record ‘Bobby Digital’,” Jon said in an exclusive interview with WMV.
The Gravediggaz, a group which introduced what was known as ‘horrorcore’, which is hip hop music with dark themes had members Prince Paul as The Undertaker, Frukwan as The Gatekeeper, Too Poetic as The Grym Reaper and RZA as The RZArector. The two albums Jon executive produced with them via his Gee Street label were 1994’s 6 Feet Deep and then in 1997, The Pick, the Sickle and the Shovel.
In the 1990s storytelling played an important role in hip hop’s development with other songs like Renee from the Lost Boys, DMX’s How It’s Going Down and many more.
Jon rose through the ranks of the music business as an executive with a penchant and the budget for risk taking which complimented artists like The RZA’s imaginative thoughts and creativity. At Baker’s musical career peak, he sold his record label to the Chris Blackwell founded Island Records. He then regained it, only to sell it again to the Richard Bronson owned V2 Records in 1996. Gee Street Records was a British hip hop record label that he started in 1985.
Even as he develops his luxury vacation brand Geejam Hotel, where James Bond’s Daniel Craig vacations and pop artists like Sam Smith go to make hits, he keeps a pulse on street music. Only this year he signed a publishing deal with dancehall newcomer Skeng to Geejam Music. He says “Hell Yeah!” to the idea that both hip hop and dancehall artists should revisit storytelling as key elements for continued growth of the genres.
‘Bobby Digital In Stereo’ was ahead of its time with its digital orchestra chords and themes of love and family relationships on songs like; ‘Domestic Violence’. A track that has been copied in both delivery, audio format and music video treatment by the likes of Eminem as he ranted against the mother of his child on the track Kim.
Only this Year Kendrick Lamar’s We Cry Together from his Grammy nominated concept album Mr. Morale And Big Steppers took on the subject of domestic violence in the same back and forth salacious arguments as RZA did in 1998. Perhaps a testament to the lack of respect in how men and women relate to each other in the hip hop community.
RZA not only made good music as a solo act but he made important music.
“He is undoubtedly one of the most creative visionary I have ever had the privilege to work with,” Jon reflects.
On how the character Bobby Digital came into being, RZA explains it was a mix between is real name and getting high:
“It came from a really good bag of weed one day, right? I was in my studio. My birth name is Bobby Diggs. So at the time, creatively, I felt like I was in a digital frame. I felt like I was in high-speed, where everything was digital, in numbers, mathematics. I said to myself at the same time that as Bobby Digital, I could use a character to describe some of the earlier days of my own life. Partying, bullshitting, going crazy, chasing women, taking drugs. At the same time, I would mix in my love for comic books. It was a mixture of fiction and reality together to make a character I thought would be entertaining, and I could utilize that character to get fans into me as an MC, as a lyricist, and also following the path of my life. It’s like pre-RZA. It’s what The RZA struggles not to be, in a way, you know what I mean?”
The album peaked at No. 54 on the Australian albums chart, No. 16 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and No. 3 on the US R&B Hip Hop albums chart.
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