Yesterday February 7th, was the anniversary of James Dewitt Yancey aka to so many J Dilla's birth, and a couple days from now on the 10th will be the anniversary of his untimely death. I'm not going to go in details, you have this for that, but I did want to share briefly what his life and work meant to me.
Like many of you, Jay Dee came into my life right around his death. However he hadn't passed yet when my best friend Newby introduced me to this hip hop giant. At that time I was not aware that he was responsible for a large part of so many rappers' catalogues, that he was almost at Prince status with the amount instruments he played, and that he was a MONSTER MC. His music coming into my life opened up a rabbit hole of discovery, and all I wanted to do when I heard his beats was start writing rhymes again and go to the record shop and dig for the weirdest sounds I could.
Dilla as an MC was up there among the best. His distinctive voice and powerful delivery atop his production pretty much put him in a category of his own.
I'll leave you with a track that he's neither the main artist or produced, but just shows you how Dilla commanded power over everything he touched.
Update: The homie DJ EXCEL put together this mix as a tribute to Dilla not too soon after he passed. Wow. Download it here.
RIP Jay Dee
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