Camper Has Produced R&B's Best Records. Now He's Making His Own.
From H.E.R.'s "Focus" and Coco's "ICU" to 'Campilation.' Welcome to the camp.
Camper has spent over a decade quietly being one of the best-kept secrets in R&B. But Campilation is here to start showcasing Camper in a new light.
Darhyl "DJ" Camper Jr. started practicing music at six. He hated it, actually. Piano lessons his parents pushed him into, and a small town in New Jersey — Mays Landing — that, by his own account, nobody comes from. “Nothing comes from it,” he told Sheen Magazine. “I’m very blessed to be one of those to come out of that.”
That was the setup, but by 11, he was all in. The rest of his story one of the steadier rises in contemporary R&B. His first placement was at 16 with Bow Wow and Omarion (“Hoodstar”), a Grammy nomination for Elle Varner’s “Refill” by his early twenties, and then a stretch of work across the last decade that includes H.E.R.’s “Focus”, Coco Jones’ “ICU,” Mary J. Blige, Brandy, Tamar Braxton, Keyshia Cole, FLO, Kehlani, and at one point, five songs charting on the Hot 100 simultaneously. Camper has been building a legacy for years. Most people are just now catching on.
Campilation, his debut album, released January 23rd, is the announcement. Eleven tracks, live piano arrangements, real bass, layered percussion — built the way that lasts. And a guest list that looks like someone threw a party and invited everyone who mattered: Stevie Wonder, Brandy, Victoria Monét, Jill Scott, Lucky Daye, Ari Lennox, Syd, Tank, Ty Dolla $ign, Tone Stith, Alex Isley, and more. He described it to us as a family reunion. “Food was definitely served,” he said. You believe it.
“I feel like Campilation defines the type of R&B era that we’re in and that we need.”
The Jill Scott record is worth stopping on. “OOWEE,” which also features Ty Dolla$ign, is the kind of song that sounds like it should have always existed. Scott’s warmth over a soulful hip-hop vibe that doesn’t rush itself, Ty Dolla $ign threading through. The whole thing feels like a room full of people who are happy to be in the same room. Camper talked about it like a man who still can’t quite believe it happened. “Working with Jilly from Philly was a dream come true,” he said. “The synergy was like no other.”
And then there’s “LOVE ME,” where Stevie Wonder plays harmonica. In 2012, Camper posted on Twitter: Wish I could get Stevie to play harmonica on this interlude I did, that’s the only thing it’s missing. Over a decade later, it happened — not on that interlude, but the same idea, the same dream, finally made real.
When someone showed him the old tweet recently, he covered his face with his hands. “Man, I said that?” he asked. “I was just talking to God.” That detail tells you everything about how Camper moves through the world — patient, faithful, specific about what he wants, and fully ready when the moment arrives.
For his first Grammy — Best R&B Album, thanks to H.E.R.’s debut album in 2019 — he flew his whole family from Jersey. His mother walked the red carpet with him. He still talks about it that way, like it just happened. Because some things you don’t let go of, and you shouldn’t.
What pushed him toward his own album, eventually, was watching artists he’d built move on — and sometimes stumble without the same results. “Let me keep stuff for me,” he decided. “Let me bet on myself.” That’s not bitterness. That’s clarity and vision. Campilation is the proof of concept — not just that he can make hits for other people, but that he has a perspective worth hearing directly. He sings on this one, too. Brandy is the one who cracked that open. Working with her on B7, he said, gave him confidence he hadn’t foreseen. If Brandy tells you to sing, you sing.
“Welcome to the Camp” — the tag you’ve heard on records for years without maybe knowing whose it was — turns out to be exactly what it sounds like. His studio in LA is The Camp. The community he’s building around himself, the producers he works alongside, the artists he’s carried and the ones carrying him now — all of it is the camp. “It’s no goodness of my own,” he told us. “I know who I come from. It’s not just me. It’s the camp.”
He’s a dope producer so I will check out his album!
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