J Dilla aka Jay Dee - The story of a sweet-toothed producer

Early years

James Yancey (07/02/1974) is born and raised on the East Side of Detroit. The first of four children, Dilla grows up in a family already steeped in music thanks to his double bassist father and his mother Maureen “Madukes”, an opera singer. He develops an early passion for music, for listening more than for production, showing the first signs of that record-collecting obsession that will mark his entire career. His experience as a listener begins with the vinyls he finds at home, but the first record he can call truly his own is a gift from his mother: Michael Jackson – “The Wiz”. A record that will hold a place of honor within the cataloguing system he will give to his own vinyl collection.

He developed his musical ear by listening to whatever the radio played and digging through whatever his family and the neighborhood record store put in front of him. Naturally he fell hard for black music, becoming a fearless devotee of funk and soul, pouring hours upon hours each day into diggin' — nothing more and nothing less than hunting down records. He kept feeding his own thirst for musical knowledge, burrowing ever deeper into the black vinyl, compulsively buying music and growing day by day the pool of material he could draw from.

In 1992, at 18, Jay Dee's life shifted gears. It was through meeting Amp Fiddler (the veteran Detroit singer and producer) that his productions gained access to more suitable technology: Fiddler, stunned by the quality of the beats Dilla could pull off with a cassette deck, introduced him to the Akai MPC sampler. Every Hendrix has his Fender, and the MPC would become James's trademark. From then on, all those records became ammunition for churning out joints, flips and beats in both quantity and quality.

Within three years things moved faster and faster. 1st Down, the group he formed with Phat Kat, were the first Detroit hip-hop act to sign to a major label. Also in 1995, alongside Proof, Thyme and Mudd, he recorded "Yester Years", an EP credited to 5 Elementz, which stands as one of the peaks James reached as a producer. The soul feel is smooth, his love for the '70s blooms into a sound rich with color, while staying impressively faithful to modern hip-hop style. That same year he founded Slum Village with his friends, rappers T3 and Baatin, handling the beats and also trying his hand as an MC. It was with Slum Village that his name started to travel among fans even outside the Motor City, eventually reaching the ears of underground hip-hop guru Q-Tip.

And it was precisely thanks to Q-Tip that Dilla got pulled into the "right circles".

The anecdote is the juicy kind you just have to believe, because legends need stories like this. The Pharcyde were struggling with their second album after the success of Bizarre Ride, and nothing was clicking. They tried to work with Q-Tip, but nothing came of it — Tip was tied up with A Tribe Called Quest, his mind elsewhere. The four guys from L.A. weren't thrilled about it. But there's always a but: Davis remembered meeting a young beatmaker a little while before, made a few calls, and a week later 21-year-old James Yancey, aka Jay Dee, landed in Los Angeles with his MPC in his backpack. Walking into the Pharcyde's studio, he switched on the sampler and played the instrumental for "Runnin'". The kid ended up handling almost the entire production of Labcabincalifornia, the album that turned the Pharcyde into stars of black music.

Ummah, the style

Dilla's work as a producer was monstrous, obsessive — a relentless search for the boldest possible combination within the stylistic limits of hip-hop beats, an endless climb toward the Olympus of sampling. Over the following two years Dilla would cross paths with the most demanding productions of his career so far, work that would clash with the judgments of press and public alike, revealing — beyond James's technical skill and warmth as a person — a firm, decisive vision of his own craft whenever he was compared to someone else. Even when the comparison was more than flattering.

Slum Village debuted in 1996, plunging straight into the colorful, soulful world that defined the collective's style, pairing top-tier flows with brilliant beats. The group's work got lumped into the hip-hop cauldron close to the spirit of Native Tongues, and inevitably to A Tribe Called Quest, especially after Q-Tip publicly praised the record. Dilla, though, in an interview with XXLMag, set the record straight — in his own way — on the matter:

“I don’t know how to say it, it’s kinda fucked up because the audience we were trying to give to were actually people we hung around. Me, myself, I hung around regular ass Detroit cats. Not the backpack shit that people kept putting out there like that. I mean, I ain’t never carried no goddamn backpack, but like I said, I understand to a certain extent. I guess that’s how the beats came off on some smooth type of shit. And at that time, that’s when Ruff Ryders [was out] and there was a lot of hard shit on the radio so our thing was we’re gonna do exactly what’s not on the radio”.

In other words: it's annoying when you're trying to do your own thing, in your own style, and just because you don't sound like whatever's on the radio, or because some big boss said you're killing it, you suddenly have to be lumped in with that crowd. Slum Village is Slum Village. Period.

The music spoke for itself, and Dilla had every right to be confident. Between a flip for Busta Rhymes and a string of remixes and productions credited to Ummah — literally "community/brotherhood", the collective name shared by Jay Dee alongside Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad (both former ATCQ members) — more and more people started wanting those Detroit beats. Productions from that period include work for Whitney Houston, the Roots, D'Angelo, and the then-reigning queen of mainstream r'n'b, Janet Jackson.

And it's with Janet that legend overlaps with history for the second time.

"Got 'til It's Gone" is the single that launched Janet Jackson's Velvet Rope in 1997. The production credits list Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis alongside the singer; the sample of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" became one of the defining hip-hop symbols of the '90s, the genre's knack for absorbing and reshaping everything reaching an unimaginable peak of popularity. The song, needless to say, sold millions of copies. But neither Jimmy Jam nor Terry Lewis were names familiar with this kind of sound, and sure enough a claim of authorship surfaced from Ummah, voiced by Dilla himself. The instrumental demo had actually been made four years earlier, an idea of Q-Tip's after meeting Jackson on the set of "Poetic Justice" (which would earn Jackson a Razzie Award for worst new actress), later reworked and pitched to the singer.

You just need ears and common sense to spot the trademarks of an Ummah production: electric piano laid over nu-soul lines, a rhythm leaning on bass and snare, and that sample sitting so far in the distance. It all sounds like it could be their own production, but something's missing. It's the imperfection of the knockoff crafted by Jam & Lewis. Even Q-Tip himself would appear as a featured guest, yet none of the collective's names show up among the producers.

Dilla was a sweet guy, described by everyone as one of the most genuine and pleasant people to spend time with, whether working or just hanging out. But Dilla was also completely absorbed in his own musical vision, and like any proud mother he was at once protective and possessive of what he'd created. Not long after, he dropped an alternate mix of the song credited to "Ummah Jay Dee's Revenge". Revenge is a dish best served cold, but James couldn't hold back, and his sunny impulsiveness exploded into a masterpiece of reinterpretation: going beyond any predictable twist, Dilla reworked the bassline, played his trusty Moog, laid down the electric piano with renewed movement courtesy of the wah-wah, softened the drums' grip and dried out the snare. The Mitchell sample comes and goes... This is the real version, this is the Janet Jackson masterpiece produced by Ummah, a journey that's now lasted thirty years — one that starts with Aretha, runs through electric-era Miles, Afrika Bambaataa and Eric B., with all of Dilla's black music heritage suddenly distilled right into it.

The world falls back into place once more with Jay's big, easy smile, and starts spinning again.

Soulquarians/Amplified

The late '90s and the early years of the new millennium find Dilla searching for new forms and new sounds. One of his defining traits has always been to dig deep into whatever sonic territory he approached, but never stay there for too long. And so he moves toward building a jaw-dropping production team: Questlove, Bilal, Common, Roy Hargrove, Erykah Badu, D'Angelo, James Poyser, Mos Def, Q-Tip, Talib Kweli, Pino Palladino and James Yancey. The team will handle productions for The Roots themselves, Slum Village, D'Angelo, Common, Badu and Bilal. The dream team draws explicitly on the Black pride of the '60s and '70s, echoing Gaye, Hendrix and Clinton without ever coming across as a cover band, instead delivering a major stylistic update, with a close eye on “the street” and everything happening in the hip-hop underground. Everything shifts toward composing from scratch rather than relying on sampling, leaving a fundamental mark on the development of nu-soul, which was growing more and more in those years.

Besides his Soulquarians work, Jay Dee is brought in to produce the debut solo album of his own mentor, Q-Tip – the man who, with A Tribe Called Quest, had turned a whole decade of hip-hop on its head, oozing style every time he opened his mouth in front of a mic. And here we come back to what was said before: Dilla is needed, and Dilla needs to change course once again, abandoning his soft, smooth approach to the beat.

“Amplified” is a raw, hardcore, brash hip-hop record, in places sublimely over-the-top. Electric pianos, brushed drums and soft basslines are set aside in favor of dry kicks and basses always on point, snare right in your face, and hysterical sampling in a continuous cut-up between samples of Kool & The Gang, Cannonball Adderley and ESG. Everything drives forward: Dilla's instrumentals are funk masterpieces, grooves to file under “unreachable”, and Tip lays down a flow with no competition in sight. There are a couple of excellent guests too: Busta Rhymes and turntable legend DJ Scratch.

“Amplified” explodes, going gold, hitting number four on the Billboard HipHop chart, five-star reviews, sky-high scores across the board. Dilla has reinvented himself, and he's a monster of consistency.

Common, D'Angelo, Erykah, anyone else?

The millennium closes with “Amplified” and opens with James at the controls of everything that matters in the Black music world. Wherever he puts his hands, things take off, and everyone has noticed. This kicks off yet another phase of his career, one that will put him in the spotlight of a world no longer limited to hip-hop and his own crew – once his productions start climbing the charts, everyone learns to recognize Jay's touch.

In mid-1999 the Soulquarians begin working on Common's album; at the time the team was mainly made up of D'Angelo, ?uestlove, Dilla and Poyser. The city is New York. The studio is the same Electric Lady Studios that saw Lennon, Dylan, Bad Brains, the Stones, Bowie, and another 90% of twentieth-century music record there. Common was coming off two very promising albums and was poised to take the big leap toward real money, the charts, and becoming the Common we know today. “Like Water For Chocolate” is a collective record, written across numerous jam sessions, kept as unstructured as possible to leave room for human feeling. At the same time, D'Angelo was finally finishing the follow-up to Brown Sugar, four years on: “Voodoo”. A talented young guy hungry for success and someone who, in the space of one album, had already left a major mark on '90s Black music find themselves under the same roof, working on their own records, with the same people. Once again, music history crosses paths with Jay Dee, fortunately in the trusted company of Thompson, ?uestlove.

During one of the many jam sessions, this groove comes out – a classic piece of soft funk, slow and relentless, an absolute killer. D'Angelo stops and pulls ?uestlove aside: “I can't leave this on Common's record, I want it on mine!”. Three times in one day the singer calls the drummer insisting on this, and Common, once informed of the request, calmly agrees in exchange for another song still in the works, namely “Goto Heaven part.2”, which on “Like Water For Chocolate” will actually feature D'Angelo. And that killer groove? The one with the minor ninth and the sixteenth notes? It will become “Chicken Grease” on Voodoo, taking its title precisely from the practice that Prince had coined that name for.

And Dilla? Dilla is at the controls, showing up with his MPC and 128 programmed bars, nothing quantized, loops that slip and shift. On this, Questlove would say: “You'd listen to his sample chops and tell him, 'I'll never be able to play along with this, dee!', then things would start grooving and get under your skin. One day we had to record some Lenny Kravitz guitars for 'Voodoo', he stops and says 'I can't play, the drum patterns keep shifting...' and we'd say 'that's exactly how it's supposed to be!'”. Dilla, together with his Soulquarians crew, signs off on both these records: Common will have a huge hit, like the good young guy he is, landing well on the charts and becoming the manifesto of a new generation of rappers; D'Angelo's “Voodoo” will become one of the biggest Black music successes of the new millennium, standing as an absolute landmark within the genre, hitting number one on the charts, and scoring big with critics, awards, and – above all – the public.

At his home in Detroit, thanks to his friend Common, Dilla gets a visit from the queen of all nu-soul queens: Erykah Badu. For her, Dilla will put together the productions of “Didn't Cha Know”, “Cleva”, “My Life” and “Kiss Me On My Neck”, adding to the already incredible résumé of a beatmaker who, at 26, seems to have already accomplished everything he could.

There is, however, one thing nagging at Dilla's mind: it's called “home”, it's called “friends”, it's called “James”. Amid all this traveling, working for others, producing the best work of his career for artists and friends but never for himself, where have his roots gone in all this time? Home is where Slum Village is. 2000 is also the year in which the group that gave birth to him, and which in fact he had never really left, finally manages to release their second album – ready for a couple of years already, but held back from an official release by a string of (other people's) record-label misfortunes, despite the material having circulated in the scene for a while.

Fantastic Vol.2 is a beautiful, goofy record, light, fun, full of sunshine. Dilla always had the ability to keep his own hyper-personal stylistic quirks separate from whatever served other people's records, and the same holds true here, where the beats live on great crookedness, on a vision that's never quite “sober” but always consistently radiant, where, with the help of his most trusted T3 and Baatin, Dilla returns free in his own den, with the strength of someone who knows he can rely on the people who've known him longest. There's no shortage of notable guests either, like the ever-present Q-Tip, Busta Rhymes or Common (featured on a second edition of the album), but these are very few guest spots, leaving the Detroit trio free to lay down the record in their own style.

This is Dilla

There's a word that nicely captures a condition shared by humanity – the Western world above all, the one hit hardest by industrialization, by work as the reason for living, by profit, very often someone else's profit. The condition of success at all costs, even at the cost of betraying yourself. Alienation. From the very first time he started splicing songs together on tape, Dilla had never worked alone, for himself, and a moment arrives when it becomes necessary to reclaim one's own humanity, to let the rules be your own and not dictated by some outside logic – no matter how much you love the people you work with, you'll always be a victim of compromise. So, enough: let's change the name. I used to be Jay Dee, but from today on I'll sign my work J Dilla. This is where I exist, where I've always lived, where I learned everything. Welcome 2 Detroit.

James's debut solo album is an explosion of freedom, running through hardcore rap, footwork, electronic delirium, bossa nova, Africa 70. Got an idea? Ready, go: the mic is open for friends who find everything already set up, with only the vocal line left to fill in. Dilla opens and closes the album, and in between it's a flood of samples, Moog basslines, jittery flips and stretched-out dilations.

And here we go again: 2001 Welcome 2 Detroit. 2002, Common's "Electric Circus": a hugely ambitious, partially successful record, pushing even further into psychedelia and shifting the rapper once again onto new terrain. 2003, Jaylib. Jaylib aka Jay Dee + Madlib. The meeting of the century. Ali vs Frazier.

Madlib is a Californian beatmaker, first active with the band Lootpack before going solo. In 1999 he drew wide attention after releasing the album "Unseen" under the name Quasimoto. A true genius of the sample, Otis Jackson Jr. is a pathological consumer of jazz and funk, which he recycles however he pleases in his own productions. The union between the two explodes on the record Champion Sound: Madlib's productions get J Dilla on the mic and vice versa, with a handful of guest spots landing like bullets, including the monstrous Talib Kweli on "Raw Shit" and the best kept secret Percee P on "The Exclusive". And it's instantly golden era. Champion Sound doesn't reach commercial success, but quickly becomes a cult favorite among hip-hop heads — Jay and Madlib had never been seen together before, and the arrival of this record completely caught everyone off guard.

2003 is a pivotal year in James's life: alongside the release of Champion Sound, following some health problems, he discovers he has developed an autoimmune disease that will lead to constant hospital stays. He decides to move to Los Angeles, sharing an apartment with his trusted friend Common, devoting himself more and more to producing for himself, and starting to spend time with Madlib, Peanut Butter Wolf and the whole Stones Throw crew, who will take him in like a brother. His beats end up on records by De La Soul and Amp Fiddler; there's a gorgeous remix for Four Tet featuring Guilty Simpson on vocals, on "As Serious As Your Life Is"; he's credited with a remix under the Slum Village name on the Daft Punk's "Daft Club"; a collection of instrumentals is released under the name Jay Dee, in which he tries to sharpen his solo work but without a clear direction yet; and then more: Talib Kweli, Common, Steve Spacek, a collaboration on the closing track as producer and MC on the second album by Dabrye, pushing his style once again toward electronic music — and then comes 2006.

Donuts

The story, if you don't already know it, is nearing its ending. But, as in all great adventures, before reaching the finale there are a few things left to close out, one last point to underline, one final spark still missing. James's health is in particularly critical condition: the last year and a half has been filled with increasingly frequent and prolonged hospital stays, and one of his last stage appearances saw him in a wheelchair. He undergoes medical treatment, including dialysis, which keeps him confined to the hospital and denies him a normal life.

His close friend J Rocc visited him often and recalls those moments: "James spent a lot of time in the hospital, where he could only bring very few things with him — he was like a caged animal, and every time he came home he'd sit down and play his Moog. He had changed his approach to composing quite a bit; for a while he found it more useful to play first, to search for harmonies and basslines, and only afterward cut up the samples. For him, playing was like telling himself, 'hey, I'm back in business!' In the hospital you'd see him with his beloved Akai sampler and his records right next to the bed. You should know he'd often ask me to bring him more records and take the used ones back home. I had the privilege of having access to his record collection, and after so many years I'd learned to find the right vinyl within that endless selection. And while I sometimes struggled to find a certain Ahmad Jamal or Eberhard Weber record, he knew exactly what he needed. He had it all in his head. I'd bring him what he asked for, we'd talk for a bit, I'd ask him how the new productions were coming along, and we'd say goodbye, 'hey, hey.' I'd walk out, go back into the world, to my loved ones, my turntables, my music. He stayed there, sampling and assembling — he couldn't take a break from that life, you understand? A stack of 45s, the Akai, the headphones. That's how Donuts was born."

Questlove recounts the genesis of Donuts and the last time he saw Dilla: "At first I didn't understand what Jay's goal was with this record. I thought it was something aimed at Kanye West, who seemed to have brought soul sampling back into hip-hop — something like 'mine's bigger than yours!' Three weeks before he died I went to visit him, and we talked a bit about what he had in mind for the album. He told me, 'It's a message.' I didn't get it right away, but after his death and the album's release things became much clearer. 'Don't Cry', for instance, is addressed to his little brother John — every song matters for what it says, it's Dilla's thoughts expressed through samples. Shortly before he died his condition was dire, he could barely even speak. I went to visit him at his mother's house, where he spent his final days, and when I walked in I heard music playing: 'Damn, he's still working!' I thought maybe he'd pull through, but as I was about to leave he picked up an extremely rare Brazilian EP by Stevie Wonder and handed it to me: 'This is for you.' I couldn't accept it, it felt far too final, but his mother came up behind me and begged me to take it. As I left the house, I didn't know whether to despair or just accept it. His mother told me that that same afternoon James produced his last beat, a strange flip of Funkadelic's 'America Eats Its Young', and told her 'I think I'm ready.' He fell asleep, and two hours later he died."

Maureen Yancey, Dilla's mother: "I didn't know about Donuts until I got to Los Angeles from Detroit. I got to hear some of what he was working on one day when his friend and fellow producer House Shoes didn't come by to see him around his 31st birthday. So I sneaked into his room while he was out and listened to the work in progress. He got so angry when he found out! He didn't want me listening to his productions before they were finished. He worked on it in the hospital, trying to finish each beat in a way that left him with no doubts, so that the next one would be different. There was 'Lightworks', that's the one! One of the special ones, so different from everything else. It brought together classic, commercial and underground all at once."

James Yancey died on February 10, 2006, of cardiac arrest brought on by his worsening health. And yet Donuts is not a posthumous record — it's the testament of a 32-year-old who, three days earlier, on his own birthday, had released the crowning achievement of a long and remarkably high-quality career.

J Dilla changed my life

The years that followed would see posthumous records, collections and archival releases. But above all, tributes — declarations of esteem and love for someone who had managed to win over not just with his music, but with his own warmth and positivity, tens, hundreds, thousands of people around the world. The Shining would be another highlight in the endless list of great things made by Jay Dee, released in August 2006, with credits including: Busta Rhymes, J Rocc, Common, Karriem Riggins, Pharoahe Monch, Madlib, Guilty Simpson, Dwele, D'Angelo.

Common would dedicate his entire album "Finding Forever" to Dilla. The Roots would pay tribute to James's work with mixtapes and references across two albums. Erykah Badu would mention Dilla in the song "The Healer" from her album "New Amerykah Part One", rearrange the beat from "People" for "My People", write the closing track "Telephone" in James's memory, and the follow-up "Part Two" would feature Dilla as producer on the track "Love".

J Rocc and Madlib would join forces for two volumes of the Beat Konducta series, Dil Cosby Suite and Dil Withers Suite, later gathered into the double release "A Tribute to…". Between 2006 and 2009, J Rocc released four mixtapes titled "Thank You Jay Dee", assembled entirely from James's own material. Busta Rhymes, Q-Tip, Talib Kweli, Raekwon, Mick Boogie and others released the mixtape "Dillagence" in 2007, rapping over Dilla's beats. His lifelong mentor and friend Q-Tip would dedicate the line "Dilla, having you in my past has been blast, you've inspired so many and forever will you last" on the track "Life Is Better" from his album "The Renaissance" — we'll leave the translation to you. Flying Lotus would reinterpret Slum Village's "Fall In Love" and "Lightworks" from Donuts under the title "LTWXRMX".

An episode of "Crate Diggers" focusing on Jay Dee's record collection was recently uploaded to YouTube; it's not only useful for understanding some of the background behind James's music, but it's also a great way to grasp just how deeply he left his mark on the people he worked and lived with.

In 2016, The Diary was then released — the long-unreleased album in which Dilla attempts to face the microphone himself, letting the beatmakers he admired most provide the sonic backdrop. It would have been his first album for a major label, Mca, testing him out as a rapper; but the project, for reasons one can only speculate about — the label backing out, or Dilla's own conviction faltering once everything was already set — never saw the light of day. Fourteen years later, veteran Nas's Mass Appeal Records, in collaboration with Dilla's own label (Pay Jay Productions), finally released the record as (are we so sure?) J. would have wanted it. The album, however, fails to convince.

The restyling work done on demos that had been locked away in a drawer overly modernizes the material and strips it of that “crackle” which often added charm to J Dilla's vinyl. There's no shortage of enjoyable moments: “The Shining Pt.1”, “Fight Club” and “The Ex” (where you can hear the hand of Pete Rock in the production, as well as the ever-reliable Bilal) stand out above the rest; however, the album lacks cohesion, some features were added recently (Snoop Dogg references Obama in “Gangsta Boogie”), and many of the tracks included have been circulating online for years, in bootleg form (“Fuck The Police” is by now a classic of the underground world).

The doubt that naturally arises, then, is whether you're actually listening to a compilation rather than an album with a genuine reason to exist. Fortunately, it's Dilla who still holds the whole thing together. Friends and colleagues work hard to celebrate him, but what really gives the record its shine is his own shadow and his flow: admittedly flat and monochrome, yet at the same time captivating, incisive, perfectly on time, a sort of instrument added on top that accompanies the backing track.

In the end, it may come as a surprise to hear Jay Dee embracing in his lyrics that misogynistic, materialistic, self-celebratory side so common - too common - in hip-hop. Here was a man who, with his gentle harmonies, alongside his friend Madlib, had managed to bring prestige to the admirable conscious strand of the genre, elevating it to his own heights. But nothing stops us from believing that these tracks were, for him, a source of fun, of experimentation, a desire to escape the “seriousness” he put into his own work and indulge in the “easier” side of the world around him.

J Dilla had a real sweet tooth, and contrary to what you might imagine, his favorite treat wasn't donuts but chocolate cake. To celebrate his birthday and the release of the album, Common, Madlib and Peanut Butter Wolf had a chocolate cake made in the shape of a donut. We want donuts, too!

A brief note from the author

If you found this monograph partial or not sufficiently professional, forgive me. Perhaps it isn't even a monograph - it's more likely an act of sincere, passionate devotion toward a musician, a producer and a human being who profoundly changed the way I listen to music. Some stories are best told with numbers, precision and detachment; others need to be left freer, without too many stylistic constraints. I felt Dilla deserved to be treated more from the gut.

I'd also like to thank Claudio Fabretti, who gave me complete creative freedom on this - a rare kind of trust to find. A special thanks goes to Cecilia, for giving me “Donuts” as a gift when it came out in 2006. And of course to you, for having the patience to read these lines.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google