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RJD2, at Union Transfer Saturday, is no longer a local, but he's got TSOP soul

It's hard not to grump a bit when speaking with Ramble John Krohn - a.k.a. RJD2 - about his new album, Dame Fortune, and his 40th birthday show Saturday at Union Transfer. The famously longtime West Philly multi-hop producer and genre-jumping artist recently moved to Columbus, Ohio, with his wife so that their 4-year-old could be closer to grandparents and such.

It's hard not to grump a bit when speaking with Ramble John Krohn - a.k.a. RJD2 - about his new album, Dame Fortune, and his 40th birthday show Saturday at Union Transfer. The famously longtime West Philly multi-hop producer and genre-jumping artist recently moved to Columbus, Ohio, with his wife so that their 4-year-old could be closer to grandparents and such.

"It's nothing personal, man," Krohn says with a laugh. "The thing that you have to realize is that I didn't want to leave Philly. There was nothing to do with anything about the city I love in my decision, and everything to do with my family that I love. ... As a single man in an alternate universe - a solitary life of gallivanting around the planet - Philly as a home base was great. As a married man, I want my family to be happy and my kid to grow up with his grandparents. ... That was important to me."

OK, we get it.

Besides, Dame Fortune - the most mixed-bag record among his 10 solo albums (not counting duet records with Philly rapper STS or his band albums with Soul Position or Icebird) - has all the earmarks of a creamy soul product from Gamble & Huff's Philly International, circa the 1970s. "Band of Matron Saints," featuring vocalist Josh Krajcik, is a Teddy Pendergrass-worthy throwback, and the guitar-pumping "We Come Alive" featuring Philly's Son Little has a bluesy Lou Rawls thing going on.

"Most of it was recorded in Philadelphia, the instrumentation at the very least, with almost all of Dame Fortune written there as well," says Krohn. "Then again, I do feel compelled to mention that my music has more to do with what I've internalized than where I am or have been specifically."

That makes sense, for on Dame Fortune, RJD2 also goes to deep space - as in Saturn - on the intergalactic opener "A Portal Inward," to the dark side of the moon (the Pink Floyd referencing "PF, Day One"), to Liverpool (the Beatlesque "Saboteur"), and beyond.

There are heavily Berlin-ish Krautrock, Scottish bagpipe and San Bernardino Valley, Calif., George Duke/Frank Zappa fusion bits to be found on Dame Fortune. Got a travel jones, RJ?

Laughing hard as he answers, Krohn says that the album's diversity comes down to personal growth and studio savvy. "Here is the realization that I've had: When I was younger, going from listening to one sort of music to another radically different one was abrasive, a real leap. The 17-year-old me couldn't fully fathom going from Public Enemy to Keith Jarrett. As I got older, every year, I get better acclimated to that jump, and all those leaps become more normal and more internalized. ... Worlds collide, man."

Yeah, but we're still bugged out that RJD2's no longer living here. He's back this weekend, though, so welcome him home, wish him happy birthday, and pretend like he never left.

RJD2, 8:30 p.m. Saturday at Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden St. $20. 215-568-1616, utphilly.com.