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

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It seems it was high time and long overdue for somebody to step up and finally set the J Dilla record straight, for both the heads and the annals of history. He’d cued material from his upcoming debut album on Atlantic, hoping to impress Tip enough to get him to produce a track. To his fans, he was the ultimate hipster; to his detractors, he was temperamental, eccentric, taciturn, or childlike.

If Tip was intent on making this a package deal for him and his little man, Skillz realized he had to go along. Tre was halfway considering reaching for the knife in his back pocket when Suave, their manager, got between them.So, for example, we have always understood that swing was a deliberate deviation from straight time rather than “sloppiness”, because everybody in the Duke Ellington Orchestra was deviating by the exact same amount all the way through the tune. And then, thirteen seconds in, the much louder Manzel beat enters, and that doesn’t line up with the drum machine beat.

When Tre told James that he had a “signature,” he meant it in the same way that jazz players have distinctive approaches to their instruments, like how Grant Green has a different approach to the guitar than, say, Wes Montgomery. They hung and listened to more of James’s tracks, some of which had been made for Slum Village that James now marked as fair game for sale to others, especially since Slum didn’t have a deal on the table. It’s fine for its purpose (background music at parties where people are drunk/high), but it’s like elevator music you can dance to, not high art.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 21st century. All carefully curated into a cohesive story that gives you insight on what made Dilla, Dilla; and what it means to be human. They made some tracks together on James’s SP-1200—not his, really, but DJ Head’s: James didn’t have his own machine yet and Head let James pick it up it when he wasn’t using it; whenever James got money, he slid Head some cash for the rental.