Artist of The Decade – J Dilla
Photo by B+
When I think of early J Dilla I think of handclaps, a hi-hat in the back keeping time, hard-hitting bassdrums and most importantly an elaborate, slinky bassline, in most cases derived from a heavily muted vocal sample. A good example of this is the beat on A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Get A Hold’ from 1996. It’s a rather basic formula for hip-hop beatmaking, but somehow Dilla’s method has always been different and undeniably unique. Dilla flips a sample like no other too. Michael Jackson’s ‘Human Nature’ has been used loads of times, but on this untitled beat he manages to recontextualize it in a manner that sounds simultaneously fresh and familiar, retaining the core melody of the original but taking on a whole new persona at the same time.
Hip-hop production is fundamentally a form of music creation rooted in recycling and reusing, generally taking more than it gives back. Dilla turned this concept completely on its head – instead of him sampling musicians (of the conventional type, i.e. one who plays instruments), musicians started sampling him. Questlove of The Roots who collaborated with D’Angelo on the latter’s Voodoo has spoken about how Dilla’s music was crucial in shaping the sound of the album. While they are consummate musicians in their own right, they were taking cues from Dilla’s style of irregular beat drops and indifference for quantizing, with some of the backing tracks essentially being Dilla beats recreated and rearranged with live instruments. All this inspiration from a man who basically lays his ideas down on a simple turntable, sampler and drum machine.
Voodoo, Common’s Like Water For Chocolate, Slum Village’s Fantastic Volume II and Dilla’s own solo joints Welcome 2 Detroit, the Ruff Draft EP and Donuts are among some of my favourite records from the past decade. All have Dilla’s overarching influence in them, directly or indirectly. These records collectively represent several significant phases of Dilla’s career. Voodoo, Like Water For Chocolate, Fantastic Volume II and Welcome 2 Detroit were all released in the early 2000′s and epitomized the more bottom-heavy, deeply soulful and laidback aspect of Dilla’s style. Common’s ‘The Light’ and Slum Village’s ‘Fall-N-Love’ are personal highlights from this period.
The Ruff Draft EP signalled a stylistic shift to a harder, edgier and more disjointed sound, less concerned with the mood but more with the bounce. I have to admit that when I first heard Ruff Draft I didn’t get with it immediately. I couldn’t identify with what he was doing on tracks like ‘Nothing Like This’ and hadn’t heard anything from him that I didn’t readily recognize. Ironically it took other people to sound like him before I went back and realised that Dilla was doing it before anyone else. I mentioned how he flipped samples like no other. Listen to this and this and see if you get what I mean.
Then of course there’s Donuts. The barebones, raw and spontaneous approach he utilized on here was unfortunately necessitated by the fact that he was working on the beats from a hospital bed. Given the circumstances surrounding the making of this album, it’s amazing to see the legacy that it has created in the years after its release. Simply put, Dilla showed an entire generation of new producers the value and art of getting more out of less. Three days after the release of Donuts, Dilla relented to TTP, a rare disorder of the blood-coagulation system.
Dilla left an immense discography, spread out over different record labels, bootlegs, unreleased material, beat tapes, forthcoming albums and an undetermined number of productions and remixes for other artists. Then there’s the insane amount of posthumous acclaim and adulation which may seem a bit puzzling to those not familiar with Dilla’s work. As an unabashed fanboy (although I’d like to state for the fact that I have been an ardent follower of his since his days in The Ummah), it’s good to know that there’s still so much more that hasn’t been heard from him. There’s no doubt that Dilla will continue to be on heavy rotation for a very long time.
2 Responses to “Artist of The Decade – J Dilla”
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Michelle Says:
February 25th, 2010 at 10:42 amI have nothing to add because I don’t know a whole lot about J Dilla myself, but just wanted to give you props for the interesting writeup, and I’ll give a closer listen to the stuff you highlighted in there when I’m not so goddamn busy.
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shtikman Says:
February 25th, 2010 at 12:45 pmI think 1Xtra’s Benji B did a good job covering most of the important points in Dilla’s discography with his tribute mix done a couple of years back. You can download the 2-hour show here – http://deviationmusic.net/blog/?p=2415. It’s a great place to start before you seek out any of Dilla’s individual releases. TURN IT UP!