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

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Harmony and rhythm are separate things. Sound and color are both waves, does that make them the same thing? Water and strychnine are both made out of atoms, does that make them the same thing? As an associate professor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University, Charnas taught a course called "Topics in Recorded Music: J Dilla" that discussed J Dilla's musical techniques and influence. [5] [6] He began work researching and reporting for the book in 2017. [7] Charnas interviewed over 200 friends, family members, and collaborators of J Dilla throughout the research process. [5] One of the best music books ever made and an instant hip-hop classic. Dan Charnas demystifies the iconic producer (and underrated emcee) J Dilla who has sometimes been posthumously deified as a virtuous underground beatmaker when his reality was much more complicated and unstable. With this fourth act, Charnas begins with focusing on how computers (DAWs) were changing the way and the rate at which music was made. Moreover, we are guided through how the creation of okayplayer.com became a connector for fans of not only The Roots, but Dilla’s fans as well. The formation of Foreign Exchange and Little Brother is a main point here. In the second part, readers are shown how a rare blood disease diagnosis shook Dilla’s world and everyone around him. He would be supported most (as always) by his mother. The world still turned, as his music friends had to continue working with or without him. Charnas debunks some myths around Dilla’s creative process during the last years of his life. He ends with a heart-wrenching account of Dilla’s passing.

And then, thirteen seconds in, the much louder Manzel beat enters, and that doesn’t line up with the drum machine beat. It is closer to being on the grid, but it isn’t in straight time either: you can see how the little markers are mostly late. His foundational understandings of music were also a notable theme through these chapters. In addition, Charnas details a deep history on the incorporation of machines into music. From metronomic machines to synthesizers to beat machines, each evolution in machine was complimented by a new musical development: Techno in Detroit forming alongside House (Chicago) and Electro (NYC). Of all the music he had been working on since meeting Q-Tip, these were the first to hit the market, and the most auspicious. “Runnin’” became the lead-off single and video from the album, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard rap chart. The persistent negativity and conflict in the wake of his death are almost a bit too much to bear, but now fans—and even his friends—are able to better grasp the fissures and disconnects that have occasionally drowned out the air-horns and accolades that deserve to rain down on Dilla unabated.A portrait of a complex genius taken too young, as well as a glorious study of the music and culture he created’ – Spin There are two reasons why my fellow academics should be engaging closely with J Dilla’s music. The first is just cultural literacy; Dilla was influential and is more widely imitated with every passing year. The second is maybe more important: there are not widely used analytical tools for studying this music, and there is a whole world of microrhythm and groove out there that the music academy has been neglecting. Right now, “music theory” classes are mostly harmony and voice-leading classes, and that harmony is too often limited to the historical practices of the Western European aristocracy. But rhythm is at least as important as harmony, and in some musics, significantly more so. There is a persistent belief that rhythm is “less intellectual” or “more instinctive” than harmony and therefore less worthy of serious study. That is pure atavistic racist nonsense, but it also means that it’s hard to do better, because we don’t have the vocabulary or the methods to study rhythm in the depth that it deserves. If we can figure out how to talk about Dilla time, then that will open up a lot of other kinds of time as well. Tre was disabused of this notion a few weeks later when James Dewitt Yancey, just off a plane from Detroit, showed up at their sublet—dressed fresh and clean in a blue-and-white Kangol beanie, extending a handshake and a smile.

a b c Lentini, Liza (1 February 2022). "Dan Charnas's Dilla Time: The Life And Afterlife Of J Dilla, The Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm". Spin . Retrieved 5 March 2023. It is not true that harmony lends itself to interpretation better. You may not have the vocabulary for interpreting it, but that does not mean that the vocabulary doesn’t exist. When you say that rhythm is “more bodily and less intellectual”, you are repeating a white supremacist axiom that has no basis in reality. If it’s the same brain structures processing the different dimensions of music, then how is one dimension more or less “bodily”? I basically devoured this book and thoroughly enjoyed the stories about Dilla’s work with Common, Slum Village and others. It was fascinating to learn about some of the deeper meaning around the sample choices on Donuts and I came away with greater context around why and how Dilla made the beats that he made. There are some rhythmic things that I find interesting, but harmony is way more important, at least to me. (This is a big part of the reason I don’t really listen to rap. Alice in Chains, for example, did a lot of cool stuff with meter (having sections of the same song in different meters, using exotic time signatures like 7/8, etc…) This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius.” (QUESTLOVE)a b c d Sanfiorenzo, Dimas (1 February 2022). " 'Dilla Time' Author Dan Charnas on Why J Dilla Is In A League Of His Own - Okayplayer". www.okayplayer.com . Retrieved 5 March 2023. Dilla Time's cover artwork was designed by Rodrigo Corral. The New York Times listed it as one of the best book covers of 2022, calling it "an image that signals the zones of [J Dilla's] many talents while nodding to the relationship between that talent and work ethic (and beats)," also noting the exclusion of Charnas' name from the cover. [8] Reception [ edit ] All in all, this book was an education on the evolution of Hip-Hop after J Dilla got his hands on it. It was a walk through Detroit and other spaces and places. It was an exploration of the international landscapes that he touched from the UK & Australia to Hip-Hop loving markets in Japan, etc. I loved Chapter 15: Descendants and Disciples, my fave chapter - it was sooo good! There were layers and layers of information about adjacent artists and musicians and Dilla's influence on their style and what-begat-what-begat-what... each layer was delicious, so interesting, mindbending, fun, and unique. I gotta go look for the playlist someone's made on this book on Spotify, it's bound to be dope. By the way, here’s another great Herbie sample flip by Dilla, and a more subtle usage of Herbie’s vocoded singing.) An ambitious, dynamic biography of J Dilla, who may be the most influential hip-hop artist known by the least number of people. . . A wide-ranging biography that fully captures the subject’s ingenuity, originality, and musical genius.” — Kirkus (starred review)

Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm is a 2022 biography of hip hop producer J Dilla written by Dan Charnas. [1] It chronicles the life of J Dilla until his death in 2006, as well as his posthumous influence on the music industry. Described as "equal parts biography, musicology, and cultural history," the book emphasizes J Dilla's signature rhythmic time-feel, which Charnas termed "Dilla time," and its wide-reaching impact on modern music. [2] [3] I recently finished reading Dan Charnas’ book Dilla Time. It’s a good one! If you are interested in how hip-hop works, you should read it. The book’s major musicological insight is elegantly summed up by this image: Troubling rumors and accusations are investigated with transparency, be they financial, medical, or even domestic, each specific instance or event reported in respectful yet thorough detail. The author writes honestly—and, occasionally, painfully—about Dilla’s relationships with the mothers of his children, and his two young daughters. We get an intimate peek into James’s close-knit bond with his own mother, whom he called Maureen, but whom the rest of us affectionately know as Ma Dukes. An ambitious, dynamic biography of J Dilla, who may be the most influential hip-hop artist known by the least number of people. . . A wide-ranging biography that fully captures the subject’s ingenuity, originality, and musical genius.”

The greatest hip-hop producer of all time is getting the love and care his legacy deserves. Dilla Time is a master class.”— DREAM HAMPTON

I love J Dilla's music like I love the broken part of myself that strives to be better each day. At times, I felt this book holding the music in the reverence it has always needed, but in others, I think it detracted from its own messaging by focusing on things auxiliary to the man himself. Charnas was wise to not shy away from the shortcomings of Dilla and his circle, but some of the more incessantly targeted chapters, along with the overwrought exhibitions of Dilla's musical followers, pervert what makes him worth writing about in the first place: the music. I don’t care how big I get,” James told him. “If I get as big as Dr. Dre, you will always be able to get a beat from me for what you just gave me. I’ll never charge any more than this.” This literary device functions as a stunning rollout, incorporating both anthropology and musicology, an engrossing display of scholarship that gets its hooks in you while setting the tone and trajectory of the stirring story to follow. Stunning portrait of the short life and fast times of James Dewitt Yancey … sad, funny and unfailingly humane, it’s not only one of the best books this writer has ever read about hip-hop but also sets a new gold standard for writing about music full stop’– Ben Johnson, Mojo MagazineAn exhaustive new book released on February 1st, Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm by Dan Charnas, seeks to correct that course and tell the essential, unabridged tale in all it’s revolutionary rhythmic glory. Damn, that’s crazy,” James replied. “I’m surprised.” Something about this gesture didn’t compute for James: a producer promoting someone who could potentially be competition. But Q-Tip was from a different school of thought: brotherhood. Exceptional… Charnas has done well to untangle the ever-evolving skein of art and money and family and friends [Dilla’s] legend encompasses … A rich read… Deeply and vividly reported’– Robert Christgau, Observer This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius.”—QUESTLOVE J Dilla turned what one generation deemed musical error into what the next knew to be musical innovation. In this splendid book, Dan Charnas offers an uncanny mix of research and vision, documentation and interpretation, plenitude and momentum. Dilla Time is definitive. And exhilarating.”