Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm

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This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius’– QUESTLOVE Reeves, Mosi (23 December 2022). "The Best Music Books of 2022". Rolling Stone . Retrieved 5 March 2023. In 1999, writer Dan Charnas met J Dilla and Common while the two musicians were working on Common's album Like Water for Chocolate at J Dilla's home studio in Conant Gardens, Detroit. [4] [5] Charnas cites this meeting as "the real origin of the book." [5] The first chapters of the book oscillate between biographic and musicological chapters. In the beginning, Charnas jumps us straight into a chance sonic encounter between Dilla and Questlove in North Carolina circa 1994. The short vignette revealed that Questlove felt the drum production was “wrong” on the Dilla-produced Pharcyde cut “Bullshit.” Like many other musicians and music listeners, Questlove would come to learn that one’s perception of wrong is informed by personal experience, space/place, and one’s own foundational understanding of music. Moreover, Dilla’s rhythmic choices were far from being haphazardly thrown together. Both are guiding principles throughout Dilla Time. And, both facts from Charnas lead readers to Dilla’s musical and physical birthplace: Detroit.

Before this book I knew and loved Jay Dee, but I didn’t realize quite how deep his influence reached in the music I love. Dilla Time has existed across genres since I first began getting serious about music in high school, so while I’ve always thought of him as one of the best - I didn’t realize he was also the original.

The Pharcyde, a quartet of rappers from Los Angeles, came to New York seeking beats. Their producer, J-Swift, had split from the group after their gold-certified debut album Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde. On the precipice of their follow-up, they now had the clout to work with the best in the business. At the top of their list was Q-Tip. A Tribe Called Quest was the group to whom the Pharcyde was most often compared—with their bohemian clothes, twisted hair, and even more twisted sense of humor. And despite Q-Tip’s noble principle of crediting his production work to the collective, he had emerged in conventional hip-hop wisdom as the locus of the group’s musical genius—especially after his rare, solo-credited outside production of the rapper Nas’s song “One Love.” He was starting to get more offers of work than he could handle. I also strongly suspect I am the only person to ever work Dilla into a major work of published fantasy—perhaps a dubious tribute, perhaps, but that's neither here nor there.

For the rap nerds and Dillaphiles, Charnas takes readers inside a plethora of the producer’s most crucial collaborations. Dilla’s embryonic lair in the Yancey family’s basement in Conant Gardens. Primordial Slum Village studio sessions at RJ Rice’s in Detroit. Inter-band fistfights recording The Pharcyde’s “Runnin’” on Delicious Vinyl. Production squad The Ummah’s inception, explosion, and dissolution, and how it affected Dilla’s relationship with Q-Tip moving forward. I look at J Dilla as a man who redefined the word ‘innovative’. This book makes you feel like you traveled his journey every single step’ – DJ Premier Our full range of studio equipment from all the leading equipment and software brands. Guaranteed fast delivery and low prices. a b c d Sanfiorenzo, Dimas (1 February 2022). " 'Dilla Time' Author Dan Charnas on Why J Dilla Is In A League Of His Own - Okayplayer". www.okayplayer.com . Retrieved 5 March 2023.I like when Charnas is ambitious enough to step beyond the bounds of simple biography -- both in those historical excursions (mostly clustered in the early sections) and the passages on musical technique. The book becomes an unpleasant thing when such a turn is all-too-unfortunately appropriate. And the milieu of the posthumous legal snafus is hardly a fun portion to putter through. Charnas begins examining Glasper and Lamar and (sort of an odd choice) Hiatus Kaiyote but stops before he really gets going. One can't blame him -- this is hardly the real subject of the book -- but it makes the whole last section feel lopsided and unfitting as a coda. In that regard, I found Dilla Time to be nothing short of a holy scroll, a bold, brilliant testimony, a clinic in dot-connecting, musical-mapping, and hip-hop nerd sh*t. The story woven within is a profound portrait of a confounding pioneer, a thorough education, rumination, and stimulation, a game-changing historical document and love letter to a lost prophet. There are two reasons why my fellow academics should be engaging closely with J Dilla’s music. The first is just cultural literacy; Dilla was influential and is more widely imitated with every passing year. The second is maybe more important: there are not widely used analytical tools for studying this music, and there is a whole world of microrhythm and groove out there that the music academy has been neglecting. Right now, “music theory” classes are mostly harmony and voice-leading classes, and that harmony is too often limited to the historical practices of the Western European aristocracy. But rhythm is at least as important as harmony, and in some musics, significantly more so. There is a persistent belief that rhythm is “less intellectual” or “more instinctive” than harmony and therefore less worthy of serious study. That is pure atavistic racist nonsense, but it also means that it’s hard to do better, because we don’t have the vocabulary or the methods to study rhythm in the depth that it deserves. If we can figure out how to talk about Dilla time, then that will open up a lot of other kinds of time as well. As a father/romantic-partner/brother/son/responsible human being, Dilla left much to be desired, and left a legion of pain in his passing. It's important to memorialize those elements of people as well because it's real. We live in the real world. It is what it is. However, the respect that Dan Charnas gave all these narratives was commendable. It never felt like a side was taken, and I respect that so much. He even eviscerated the toxic fan culture around J Dilla, the beat-loving culture vulture bros that ruin things with their "J Dilla Saved My Life" T-Shirts when "they don't know who Slum Village is". I'm not a purist, and I don't know it all. However, if I had a dollar for every time I've rolled my eyes as some dude tried to explain Dilla to me, I'd have a lot of money. I'm glad that he pointed out the toxic bro culture, BIG daps to Charnie for that! That was awesome.

In All You Need is Ears, legendary Grammy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated record producer George Martin shares tales from his life and musical career with the Fab Four. Equal parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century. This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius.” (QUESTLOVE)With the subtitle The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm, the book makes a bold claim, and the stakes are indeed high. The basic premise is partly an artist biography in the traditional sense, a comprehensive dive into J Dilla from family, friends, collaborators, imitators, and champions of his genius, not to mention the raw details regarding the debilitating illness that slowly, savagely took his life.