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J Dilla


halisray

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dilla is great - for me, i've heard his name but hadn't really taken notice of him until he passed. But afterward, i realized how much of my fav productions were done by him. Definitely check out his stuff with The Ummah / A Tribe Called Quest.

 

Probably my favorite hip hop track of all time:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f-pzi8n8Gc

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  • 2 years later...

wow no talk of dilla for over 2 years!

 

so i did a tribute to dilla for my first show of the summer session. i've been wanting to do a tribute for him for a long time because he's been vastly inspirational for me, and his music has helped me conquer a lot of my self doubt and given me confidence and love for life. basically, changed me into somethin greater. love to my dilla dawg!

 

http://soundcloud.com/the-dustbowl/for-life-for-love-for-j-dilla

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Seconding Fantastic Vol. 1 !! Released in 95 with production that sounds like it's from the mid to late 2000s.

 

If you're a hip hop n00b who is interested in Dilla, I would highly recommend the three volumes of the Dillanthology.

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Guest zaphod

There is a lot of begging and posturing around Dilla. This thread is a perfect example--"omg n00b I am pre-Dilla and post-Dilla u fail at all hip-hop" nonsense. He is a good producer but implicit in that statement is that he is a good sample spotter so the majority of the soul that touches you is The Stylistics, Dennis Coffey, Undisputed Cosmic Truth, Isley Brothers, Barry White, etc. It's good hip-hop but it falls short of revolutionary.

 

i don't agree with this at all. but you can make that argument for any hip hop or sample based music. it's all in how he uses the samples. what he contrasts them with. tell me this isn't brilliant:

 

[youtubehd]hqZxQuDadyU[/youtubehd]

 

to be able to spot that tiny bit of a song called "claire" and then transpose it to another key and turn it into this melancholic piece of music. i think that takes a bit more than just channeling a sample.

 

the only argument you can really make against dilla is that he's a totally mediocre rapper and that slum village is only notable for their production work. but even then, it's all about feel.

Edited by zaphod
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Dilla took sampling to another level of subtlety, making previous notable efforts like Endtroducing look like child's play (in my humbly philistine opinion). In a genre based almost entirely on sampling of some sort, I would love to hear how this falls short of revolutionary. ("Revolutionary" is not a word I like to use but I'm trying and failing to think of some definition which makes xxx's usage work)

 

Sure most bitch-ass corny producers aren't going to learn very much by listening to his music but who gives a fuck

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Guest zaphod

[youtubehd]vVYza0NiWuU[/youtubehd]

 

this song is actually better than either of the ones it samples. he uses a pretty run of the mill isley brothers track that i'm sure has been sampled a million times and then a dick hyman song called alfie and completely changes the context of both. figuring out how those little pieces both hint at a kind of infinite feeling and working them into a track about not having enough of something that feels like it's endlessly rising is just genius. i can't think of another producer who has done that and dilla did it repeatedly.

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Recommended to all in this thread including those who have since left the forum is the recent biography Dilla Time: The Story of the Hip Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm

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