He also rewinds the histories of American rhythms: from the birth of soul in Dilla’s own “Motown,” to funk, techno, and disco. In Dilla Time, Dan Charnas chronicles the life of James DeWitt Yancey, from his gifted childhood in Detroit, to his rise as a Grammy-nominated hip-hop producer, to the rare blood disease that caused his premature death and follows the people who kept him and his ideas alive. And at the core of this adulation is innovation: a new kind of musical time-feel that he created on a drum machine, but one that changed the way “traditional” musicians play.
Yet since his death, J Dilla has become a demigod: revered by jazz musicians and rap icons from Robert Glasper to Kendrick Lamar memorialized in symphonies and taught at universities. He died at the age of thirty-two, and in his lifetime he never had a pop hit. He wasn’t known to mainstream audiences, even though he worked with renowned acts like D’Angelo and Erykah Badu and influenced the music of superstars like Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson. "This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius.” -QUESTLOVEĮqual 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. It really doesn’t get much better than that for me.This program contains examples of J Dilla's music performed in the studio by drummer Nate Smith and is accompanied by a bonus PDF of maps, photos, guides, and more. At lunch time he took a three-hour break…Then he’d work again from 3pm until 8 or 9pm….” He created them quickly, one after the other, finished them, and then moved on. From 9am until noon, he made “beats,” or individual rhythm tracks for rappers to rhyme on or singers to sing over. His vigilance was almost always rewarded by an element deep within a track. He listened to entire songs, listened and listened. He didn’t just skip through the records, “needle-dropping” for interesting parts. From 7 to 9am he swept, wiped, and dusted every inch of his studio while listening to music, usually records that he had recently purchased, listening for sections to sample and manipulate on his Akai MPC3000 drum machine. “Every day, no matter how late Jay stayed up, he rose at 7am. And this particular excerpt from Chapter 1 really makes me long for days like these in my own life (even though days like these may never come): I just started reading Dilla Time, by Dan Charnas, and I am hooked.
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