A Tribute to J Dilla

James Yancey, Dilla Dawg, Jay Dee or J Dilla as most people know him by till today, was one of the most influential producers and hip hop artists of our time. Unfortunately in 2006 he passed away at the age of 36 from a rare blood condition. I discovered him at random when I first heard the album Champion Sound in which he collaborated with the sometimes hard to get yet undoubtely innovative persona of Madlib, and as I started to dig further into his work it was only then when i realized how big his contribution was to the genre, as the list of people that have either used his material or have cited him as a musical influence is literally endless. He is probably one of the few figures in hip hop that has influenced bands and artists of totally different musical backgrounds from pop and house to electronic and shoegaze, not to mention how many hip hop and rnb artists have sampled his material in their own work especially after his death. The effect of his work was so massive there is a current discussion of installing a plaque in his honor at his hometown of Detroit where Dilla initiated as an artist. Throughout his career as a producer Dilla worked with a series of artists from De La Soul and Common to Busta Rhymes and Erykah Badu, and was also a member and producer of hip hop group Slum Village which he formed with two of his schoolmates. Aside all the material that Slum Village put out, Dilla also did alot of work as a solo artist both under the name J Dilla and Jay Dee resulting in a total of 8 albums,3 of which were released after his death. Last February as a tribute to the 3rd anniversary of Dilla's passing, Stones Throw records and Stussy produced a collector's tshirt with a graphic taken from Ralph Rashid's 2005 book "The Beat: Hip Hop Home Studios" a photographic archive of hip hop producers.

James Yancey aka J Dilla
RIP 1974-2006