J Dilla, Rest in Peace

Hip-hop record producer and MC, J Dilla. Photo by B+. Courtesy Stones Throw Records.

Last Friday morning, a Motown marvel passed away in Los Angeles. Hip-hop superproducer J Dilla, aka Jay Dee, born James Yancey, succumbed to liver complications after a three-year battle with an incurable blood disorder. He had also been diagnosed with lupus. Dilla was mostly a stranger to the musical mainstream — unlike so many other rap artists, he maintained a minimal interest in the limelight — but committed hip-hop fans will remember him as one of the greatest beatsmiths in the genre’s history. Dilla turned 32 only days before his death, rap’s most significant premature ending since the 2002 murder of Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay.

Little is known about Dilla’s youth on Detroit’s east side. As a boy, he shopped for jazz and soul records with his father; as a young man, he discovered his city’s underground hip-hop scene. He hung out in the same clubs that Marshall Mathers used to frequent, long before the world knew him as Eminem. Dilla’s parents pushed him towards music, a chore that became his lifelong passion. “They made me play an instrument. It was very strict and kind of rough because I wanted to hang out and do what everyone else did,” he later said as an adult. “[But] I guess I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now — so I thank God for that.”

Dilla started his production career in the mid-’90s as Jay Dee, a studio wunderkind who crafted sparse, soulful songs for the likes of A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul and Busta Rhymes. In 1997, he delivered a devastating remix of Janet Jackson’s Got ’Til It’s Gone, but never again collaborated with a middle-of-the-road megastar.

In 1998, Dilla formed the group Slum Village with his high-school friends, rappers T3 and Baatin. Label politics delayed the release of their first retail album, Fantastic, Vol. 2, for two years. Meanwhile, Dilla increased his stature as a producer, crafting beats for Common, the Roots, Mos Def and other so-called “conscious” (i.e., politically minded) hip-hop heavyweights. He deliberately avoided the big-picture changes that happened to rap near the turn of the century, eschewing ostentatious jewelry and its accompanying lifestyle of excess.

Vol. 2, produced entirely by Dilla,was found — i.e., stolen — and passed around rap’s underground like candy. By the time it reached store shelves, Slum Village was routinely touted as the most bootlegged group on the planet. “I can name at least 20 innovative occurrences that appear on this record that haven’t appeared on any hip-hop record,” ?uestlove, drummer for the Roots, declared in an online review. He wasn’t writing about the rhyming.

Welcome 2 Detroit (2002), Dilla’s sparkling solo debut, included an electro do-over of Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express — playfully retitled B.B.E. (Big Booty Express) — and a reverent reworking of Donald Byrd’s jazz gem Think Twice. Dilla quit Slum Village in 2003, but continued shaping the sound of hip hop via his own projects and freelanced production jobs.

Courtesy Stones Throw Records.

Last week, Stones Throw Records released Dilla’s latest solo project, Donuts, a 31-track, instrumental extravaganza. (He finished two other solo records before he died. One, The Shining, is scheduled for a June release.) There is no rapping; most of the vocal snippets are old-school samples. Time: The Donut of the Heart, for example, is a clever excursion based on the Jackson 5’s All I Do Is Think of You. It is too soon to say if Donuts is Dilla’s defining masterpiece — he made the kind of music that needs to be spun a bazillion times before it can really be heard — but the first dozen trips through have felt nothing less than sensational.

J Dilla honoured the music of his youth, injecting his productions with haunting, fluid jazz and soul sounds. Although he was never a great prize as a rapper — his delivery is best described as adequate — he rivalled Kanye West for the title of top beatmaker of this new century. Ever the strong, silent type, he was a yin to Kanye’s yang, as reserved as West is wild. Dilla’s most frequent descriptor: your favourite producer’s favourite producer.

I was lucky to see him at Toronto’s Opera House last year. Dilla was on the bill with MF Doom, a motormouth who wears a metal mask for all public appearances, and Madlib, Dilla’s partner in the leftfield production duo Jaylib. Dilla versus the U.S.-Canada border was always an adventure, and there was never a guarantee that he’d make it through. Inside the venue, no one seemed sure if he had arrived. Madlib and Doom prattled through a collaborative set, but there was too much dope in the air, and nothing special was happening onstage.

Then something did. Dilla burst from the shadows, fist locked on a microphone, and cued the DJ to find a big beat. The crowd exploded, Dilla exploded. For 15, perhaps 20 minutes, he held the room in his hands. At the finish, he led the audience in a raucous, singalong rendition of F--- the Police, his 2001 remix of NWA’s seminal gangsta hit. The last verse ended, the music dropped: and Dilla disappeared from the stage as quickly as he’d come. Too soon.

Matthew McKinnon writes about the arts for CBC.ca.

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