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Ralph Jordan Croucher (born November 14, 1978), professionally known as Jordan Croucher or JRDN is a Canadian recording artist. Croucher’s upbringing was split between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Early Life
Croucher was born in Halifax but grew up in Toronto until age 11 when his family returned to Nova Scotia. In Toronto, he lived at Jane and Finch in the same building as King Lou from Dream Warriors. The jazz rap pioneer introduced Croucher to hip hop culture at this time.
Croucher attended St. Francis Xavier University where he played on the basketball team[1] . After graduation he played professionally for a year in France.
After playing basketball in France, Croucher returned to Halifax to work as an outreach worker to mentor at risk high school students. It was at this time in Halifax that he began to focus seriously on music. Previously, he had sung national anthems at sporting events and played in a cover band called Shades of Groove.
Career Overview
Jordan re-immersed himself in music gaining national experience by competing in Canadian Idol and successfully making it to the top 70, out of 12,000 competitors. This gave him an opportunity to perform with Canada’s best talent, while gaining television exposure. Jordan was referred to the Much Music reality show Much 911, to meet and perform in front of producers from Capital Records, and Rap City. Since the release of Volume 1 in February 2004, Jordan has been constantly doing shows in Halifax and across Canada.
He began working with Halifax producer Trobiz and recording mix tapes with the groups N.E.P and Triple Threat. In 2007, Croucher began to work with producer and Juno-nominated artist Classified (rapper) (Luke Boyd). Classified produced Croucher’s debut album No Dress Code in 2007.
2007: No Dress Code The 13-track record produced by Canadian rapper Classified featured singles and videos “Selfish Times,” “Feelin’ Fine,” “So Addicted,” “Won’t Let Go” and “It’s Raining.” It also earned Croucher the CBC Galaxie Rising Star prize at the 2007 African Nova Scotian Music Awards show[2][3] , a nomination for Best Urban Single at the 2008 East Coast Music Awards[4] and an appearance on the CBC Television special, Barenaked East Coast Music[5]. He toured across Canada with the likes of Classified and Maestro and opened for such international stars as Ne-Yo, Snoop Dogg, Rihanna, Nas and Juelz Santana.
2010: I AM JRDN[6] Shortening his name to JRDN, Croucher has been working with Toronto’s Grammy Award-nominated Kuya Productions[7] songwriting and production team of Sammy Blues and Bobby Brass, who’ve worked with Nelly, Mase, Ginuwine, Jesse McCartney, Nicole Scherzinger and Akon among others.
“All We Need” is a duet recorded with Melanie Fiona.
Croucher will be making Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver versions of the song Ghetto, featuring talent from each city. He will be donating proceeds to organizations that help less fortunate communities in those cities.
He is presently working on a video for “For the Ghetto” with cousin video director Cazhmere and has received MuchFACT support for a video for Like Magic[8].
Croucher presently serves as a Youth Ambassador for D250[9] and was a delegate in the Citizen Voices program[10].
Discography
No Dress Code, 2007
IAMJRDN, 2010
References
- ^ http://www.goxgo.ca/sports/2010/9/6/MB_0906101755.aspx?path=mbball
- ^ http://www.ansma.com/artists-jordancroucher.html
- ^ http://www.galaxie.tv/en_US/risingStar/pastWinners/2007/60
- ^ http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/Arts/Entertainment/2007-12-18/article-1298959/Joel-Plaskett-Emergency-gets-seven-ECMA-nominations,-Wintersleep-five/1
- ^ http://www.citizenvoices.gg.ca/en/around_the_world/5
- ^ http://www.cityonmyback.com/2010/09/04/news-jrdn-releases-debut-album-november-2nd/
- ^ http://www.hiphopcanada.com/tag/kuya-productions/
- ^ http://www.muchfact.ca/news/show/63
- ^ http://www.d250.ca/media.asp?ID=19
- ^ http://www.citizenvoices.gg.ca/en/around_the_world/5