Once every year I get into loopholes of music where I re-listen to one artist or producer over and over and over again.
Today I realised that J Dilla (James Dewitt Yancey) is until today, my top, most cherished, most listend to, deeply connected one. I have some others, like Burial, Frank Ocean. And then, Lana Del Rey.
Mmmh I start to see a pattern… Like I’m stuck in my teenage years / early twenties… Is this a researched phenomenon?
Anyways, before I look up studies about music taste development and diverge off the topic, let me just do my world waterfall.
Here is some wikipedia info about the one and only J Dilla Dee!
James Dewitt Yancey (February 7, 1974 – February 10, 2006),[5][6]better known by the stage names J Dilla and Jay Dee, was an American record producer, composer and rapper. He emerged during the mid-1990s underground hip hop scene in Detroit, Michigan, as a member of the group Slum Village.
He was also a member of the Soulquarians, a musical collective active during the late 1990s and early 2000s.[7] He additionally collaborated with Madlib as Jaylib, releasing the album Champion Sound. ”
J Dilla was a prominent figure in all the music I listened to from my 16th until today, and his prods are a shared music passion with my lover back then… who is still my lover today! Jasper!
And who got me the first album I’m going to list here:
Donuts, J Dilla (album)
“Donuts is the second studio albumby the American hip hop producer J Dilla, released on February 7, 2006, by Stones Throw Records. It was released on his 32nd birthday, just three days before his death, making it his final album to be released during his lifetime.” (wiki)
You must know that I really really wanted a J Dilla tattoo as a teenager & that’s how much I felt connected to his music. I knew it was impossible to have my parents agree on letting me get it though (thankfully so).
I drew his name with a marker on my arm regularly instead. Now that I am old enough I might actually tattoo myself now with something referring to J Dilla one day.
Today after working 10 hours, I stumbled upon a Youtube video something like J Dilla samples explained. Interesting I thought, although I saw many of those videos before, there’s always new things to find in an old topic, or a refresh needed. Also today I wrote about an idea for a workshop with kids where we work around the idea of sampling (sound and image!)
I worked in the office today while listening to really good music half of it I felt inspired to list my favourite songs and albums from a period of my life: my late teens and early twenties (right after coming out of my dubstep Digital Mystics, jungle & breakbeat phase because UKF, drumstep & brostep ruined it all).
Today, I see how much J Dilla worked on, and how new sounds from hım stıll appear to me. Not because they never reached me, but more because I’m not a musıc geek or an expert. I just go wıth what feels rıght—lıkıng or not—wıthout overthınkıng. Those who know an artıst's whole work fascınate me. That’s not who I am, but that’s fıne.
I often loop one song countless tımes for years. Stıll, I may not know the lyrıcs or the producer... My braın works ın unusual ways.
All Good - Illa J
(song)
For this one, All Good by J Dilla’s brother Illa J, I am not going to use my own words but the ones of an article - because they already describe it better than I could:
“‘All Good’ is a relaxing number which oozes melancholy and nostalgia. The crisp yet slurry sample comes from the 1967 song ‘Look Of Love’ by Ray ‘Funky Trumpet’ Davies and features a soothingly repetitive riff. This song, along with the rest of the album was in fact produced by J Dilla and, I feel that Illa J showcases them in a new, refreshing light. What’s not lot to love about a new album of old, unreleased Dilla beats? It’s apparent from Illa’s relaxed and minimal flow that he intends to show nothing but the upmost respect to these world-class instrumentals by letting them breathe, as a pose to smothering them with lyricism.
“A good, unhurried, rainy-afternoon rap album”, ‘Yancey Boys’ provides that dose of nostalgia to ease you through reality.
‘All Good’ helps especially. The beat and lyrics seem to acknowledge how that although the shimmering past might seem tempting to dwell in and, although it’s miserable and dreary outside, the best thing is to look and push forward.”
by samcreedon.wordpress.com
Tomorrow I will write more about the following:
