ON POINT TV: The Frank N Dank interview (video)

 via www.on-point.be

NEW ALBUM FROM THE LATE GREAT J DILLA DUE JUNE 2ND

By now most everyone is familiar with the story of musical legend J Dilla. The quiet, prolific producer collaborated with everyone from Erykah Badu to Common to Janet Jackson to Prince.  Dilla was just beginning to capitalize on his cult status when he sadly passed at age 32 due to Lupus-related complications. Jay Stay Paid is a 25 track collection of unreleased Dilla beats mixed and arranged by Pete Rock. While mostly instrumental, ”J$P“ also offers a few guests vocals from artists that Dilla worked with or admired including Black Thought of The Roots, MF DOOM, and M.O.P. 

Curtailing any notion of jumping on some sort of Dilla bangwagon, Jay Stay Paid was executive produced by Dilla’s mother Maureen Yancey (aka Ma Dukes) along with the musical supervision of Dilla’s only real musical idol, Pete Rock.  “It wasn’t rushed and it wasn’t haphazard,” explains Ms Yancey. “This album combines what he did in the beginning of his career, what he did in some of our early hospital stays, which was very deep, and some stuff pulled from old floppy disks & DATs. Its mind blowing…this is like the missing links to Dilla’s legacy.”

The format of the album plays like a radio show with Pete Rock as the program director. With regards to Pete’s involvement, Ms. Yancey gets very excited, “Dilla wanted to pattern himself behind Pete. His dream was to become as close as possible to what Pete stood for. Pete meant everything to him. Dilla would have just been flabbergasted! ” Pete’s sentiments were the same toward Dilla, “Dude was amazing. He just kinda came outta nowhere and the more you heard his beats the better they got. He may not be here with us, but it’s all good we’re going to keep his music alive and well.”

In the late 80s, Dilla founded the seminal rap group Slum Village and put Detroit hip-hop on the map, while the 90’s saw him playing a major role in the production team The Ummah with Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad doing extensive work on A Tribe Called Quest’s last two albums. 

Jay Stay Paid will be released on June 2nd on Nature Sounds.

via Biz3

The ULTIMATE J Dilla tribute…

DAMN! So sorry i missed this one. Too much! But thanks to SweenyKovar, we have a bit of insight into what went down…

——

Sunday February 22nd was historic.

That night, Cal State LA’s Luckman Theatre was the place every self-respecting hip hop head worldwide envied. ArtDontSleep, Mochilla, Vtech, Carlos Nino and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson created a spectacular musical performance by having a 40 piece orchestra play select pieces of music from James Yancey’s vast discography. I honestly can’t quite explain the electricity in the air that night, I just know everyone was awed and honored to witness such a show. 

The night begun with DJ House Shoes playing a set of Dilla classics, originals and select voice messages from Erykah Badu, ?uestlove and J Dilla himself, as well as an unreleased and unleaked Dilla song produced by Shoes. In the interim between Shoes and J Rocc, this Mochilla video played on the giant screen behind the stage.

J Rocc followed with a classic set. J Rocc seems to have every version of every Dilla beat, the full mixes of a good number of heaters and of course a gang of unreleased heat. Still, the biggest spectacle was yet to come. After J Rocc’s set, Common, Ma Dukes and Illa J came onstage to give a brief introduction to the rest of the show. Carlos Nino also appeared to further play host to  Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and The Suite For Ma Dukes Orchestra.

The first of their two 45 minute sets began with the orchestra playing cuts off the Suite for Ma Dukes EP (now available on vinyl and iTunes). To hear cuts like ‘Nag Champa,’ ‘Find A Way’ and ‘Fall in Love’ live in this setting was nothing short of mind blowing, but the real treats were to come. Afterwards, the orchestra began to get deeper into Dilla’s discography. They played a particularly ridiculous rendition of Phat Kat’s ‘Don’t Nobody Care About Us’ and had heads in the audience up in arms with their version of Jaylib’s ‘The Official.’ My personal favorite orchestral rendition was the ominous ‘Take Notice,’ or was it the Dilla beat pauses that Miguel and company pulled of in their rendition of ‘Jealousy’? The intermission came and went. Everyone in the lobby was smiling from ear-to-ear, ecstatic about what had just happened. As people filed back into their seats the curtain was raised once again and Carlos Nino introduced the first of a line of special guests, Karriem Riggins on the drums and Dwele on the mic.

Dwele performed an orchestral version of ‘Angel’ backed up by Amp Fiddler, Bilal and an amazing Portugese singer who’s name escapes me. Afterwards Bilal came onstage to perform an MC-less version of ‘Reminisce,’ followed by an orchestral cover of Stan Getz ‘Saudade Vem Correndo,’ aka the original for the Dilla-produced Pharcyde track ‘Runnin’ that must have given everyone in attendance goosebumps. Then, the closing, ‘Stakes Is High’ with special guests Posdonous of De La Soul and Talib Kweli. Everyone was standing up in their seats, chanting along to the chorus. This was magic.

Once again, a huge thank you goes to everyone involved with this performance. It will be a day that will go down in music history. I am humbled to have been in attendance. 

via CDR

 

Suite For Ma Dukes Session January 2008

The original recording session for the forth coming J Dilla tribute, Suite for Ma Dukes. The band makes a scratch track for the strings and horns which were laid the next day. 

Wurlitzer: Miguel Atwood-Ferguson
Rhodes: Brandon Coleman
Percussion: Nikki Campbell
Drums: Gene Coye

J DILLA MADE ME DO IT!

R.I.P James”J Dilla” Yancey, who died on this day, February 10th, 2006.

James Yancey will be forever be known as J Dilla. He was born in Detroit. His music was the most revered sound in hiphop from the mid-nineties until today. He had worked with everyone from Tribe called Quest to Busta Rhymes, De la Soul, Common even Janet Jackson. His two solo albums for BBE records are classics and his Donuts album for Stones Throw is considered genre defining. Donuts, was completed during one of his extended hospital stays. Dilla suffered from Lupus. It was released on February 7, his 32nd birthday. Three days later, while at his Los Angeles home with his mother (MaDukes), he passed away.

It sure is hard to honor a man who had already done so much musically in his life (and there are many online tributes as we speak), but Los Angeles musicians and J Dilla devotees Carlos Nino & Miguel Atwood Ferguson have certainly made their tribute count. With the help of ArtDontSleep and Mochilla, the two have produced a four song orchestral EP of music originally produced by James “Jay Dilla” Yancey, building on 2 free downloadble songs that have already done the rounds. The pair will also perform the EP, along with other Dilla compositions, with a 36 piece orchestra at a live concert in Los Angeles on February 22nd at the  Luckman Fine Arts Complex. The EP is already available on  available on iTunes and all proceeds go directly to Ma Dukes. You can make pre-orders for the CD/LP here. 

tracklist

1. Find a Way

2. Antiquity

3. Fall in Love

4. Nag Champa

Carlos Nino & Miguel Atwood Ferguson – Nag Champa

 

Time to remember Jay Dee…

J Dilla was born February 7th, 1974, and passed away February 10th, 2006.

J Dilla Changed My Life.

Parra + Stonesthrow = J Dilla/Ma Dukes

 Parra didn’t like what he read in this Vibe article so he got to work. Raise It Up!

Donuts to Dollars: The Battle for J Dilla’s Legacy

via VIBE Magazine

 

THREE YEARS AFTER HIS UNTIMELY DEATH, J DILLA’S BEATS AND REPUTATION LOOM EVER LARGER OVER HIP HOP. BUT FOR HIS MOTHER – WHO NURSED THE VISIONARY PRODUCER THROUGH A CHRONIC ILLNESS AND HAS WATCHED HIS ESTATE LANGUISH IN LIMBO – THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES. BY KELLEY LOUISE CARTER

There’s nothing Maureen Yancey wouldn’t do for her children. But as she sits in the basement studio of her only surviving son’s Los Angeles home, she struggles with the one thing she hasn’t done since her firstborn, James Dewitt Yancey known in hip hop circles as Jay Dee or J Dilla – three years ago of complications from lupus. She just can’t. She didn’t do it when the ambulance arrived at the nearby house Dilla shared with. Common, and she didn’t when they failed to revive him from cardiac arrest. She couldn’t even bring herself to do it when she picked out which baseball cap she’d place by his coffin.

“When he left, I had an awful void,” she says calmly. “I didn’t grieve like you always think you’d grieve. I always had a joy and the strength to help others to get through it. But…” her voice trails off, hands smoothing down her jeans. “I haven’t cried yet.”

Still, the memories came flooding back when she flew from Detroit to visit the city where her son was buried at age 32. “I rejoiced in the fact that he wasn’t sick anymore,” she says, “and that he’d done what he came here to do. I do believe that. His purpose on earth was to come here and give us the music that he had in his heart and soul.”

The equipment that surrounds her is Dilla’s, the same gear he used to create the deceptively simple, unspeakably beautiful music that solidified his reputation as one of hip hop’s greatest. As Busta Rhymes put it in 2007, “He wasn’t just a producer, he was the best producer.”

 

Many of her son’s friends – Common, Busta, Erykah Badu – still call regularly, and keep her son’s music in rotation. Q-Tip’s latest single, “Move” (Universal Motown, 2008), was built around a Dilla beat, and her other son John Yancey, a rapper known as Illa J has released the powerful new album, Yancey Boys (Delicious Vinyl, 2008), which was produced by his big brother.

Meanwhile the 60-year-old woman everybody calls Ma Dukes faces health problems of her own, and financial challenges as well. Although numerous memorials and “benefits” were held in his name, the proceeds didn’t change his family’s life. Dilla left two daughters – Ja’Mya, 7, and Paige, 9 – to provide for, a sizeable IRS bill, and unresolved legal issues surrounding the use of his beats. Ma Dukes says she has never received money from her son’s estate and that her plans to establish a foundation in his name were quashed by the executor of his estate. Somehow, she was not reduced to tears even after Dilla’s attorney informed her that she had no legal right to use her own son’s name or likeness for commercial purposes. Not even to support his family.

IN HIS NATIVE DETROIT, DILLA WAS THE MAN. The soft-spoken beatmaker was a pioneer of the Motor City hip hop landscape that struggled to gain national recognition before Slim Shady put the D on the map in 1999. Though he remains anonymous to the masses, Dilla is considered a demigod by his hardcore fans. His distinctive drum sounds and grimy, organic sound palette revolutionized hip hop production, and echoes of his innovative use of samples can be heard in the work of Just Blaze and Kanye West. “He can do a Primo beat better than Premier. He can do a Dre beat better than Dre, and he can out-rock Pete Rock,” says fellow Detroit producer House Shoes. “But none of them could duplicate a Dilla beat. Much respect to those three. They were pioneers. But that’s the fucking truth.”

Dilla grew up in the Conant Gardens section of Detroit’s Eastside surrounded by music. His dad, Beverly Yancey, played piano and upright bass. “My mom and dad had a jazz a cappella group, and they’d sing in the living room for hours and hours,” says Illa J, 22. “It was really laid-back and nonchalant. While that was happening, my brother would be downstairs in the
basement doing his thing.”

By the mid-1990s, Dilla was getting calls from some of the hottest stars of the day. He produced tracks for The Pharcyde, De La Soul, Busta Rhymes, A Tribe Called Quest, and Q-Tip, with whom he founded the production collective The Ummah. Yet despite these high-profile projects, Dilla shunned the limelight. His love of music eclipsed any concern for dealing with industry politics. “He wasn’t antisocial,” says Illa J. “He was just quiet. That comes from our dad. A lot of his personality rubbed off on my brother. It was all about the craft for him. He didn’t care about all that other stuff.”

When Tribe’s Beats, Rhymes, and Life (Jive, 1996) was nominated for a Grammy, Tip invited Dilla to the award ceremony. “I was like, ‘Yo, this is a good opportunity for you, you should just go.’ He was like, ‘Hell no, I ain’t going. Fuck that!”‘ recalls Q-Tip, laughing at the memory. “I said, ‘You got nominated for a fucking Grammy. You are going to go.’ He said, ‘I ain’t got nothing to wear!’ But he went. He was so mad and disgruntled and angry about that. He was much happier doing it his way. That’s who he was. He didn’t really want to fuck with none of that. And I don’t blame him.”

DILLA REALIZED SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH HIS HEALTH IN JANUARY OF 2002. He’d just returned from Europe and thought he had a bad flu. Sick to his stomach and complaining of chills, Ma Dukes took him to the emergency room at Bon Secours hospital in suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. His blood platelet count should have been above 150, but it was below 10. Doctors told his mother they were surprised he was still walking around.

He tested positive for lupus, an autoimmune disease that can be fatal. To make matters worse, Detroit doctors diagnosed him with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, aka TTP, a rare disorder that causes blood clots to form in the body’s blood vessels.

Despite his degenerating health, Dilla packed up his stuff and moved out to Los Angeles, where he lived with his friend and frequent collaborator Common. He set up a studio and got to work. But very few knew how bad life was for the soft-spoken prodigy. He poured himself into his work, doing his best to forget his health problems. Ma Dukes says there were several close calls. When she left him alone once, Dilla fell down and bumped his head. Because she refused to leave Dilla’s side during his last days, she and her husband lost their house. She tried to file for bankruptcy to save the family home but didn’t get back to Detroit in time to sign the necessary paperwork. “I wasn’t leaving my son,” she says.”We lost the house. But I wasn’t concerned. It didn’t bother me at all.”

At summer’s end, 2005, Dilla found himself in a hospital bed at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, the same hospital where The Notorious B.I.G. and Eazy-E died. He’d lost the ability to walk and could barely talk. His own body was killing him, and there was little to be done about it.

Sensing that death was coming, he told his mother he needed his equipment in the hospital with him. Ma Dukes asked his friends from the L.A.-based label Stones Throw Records to lug his turntables, mixer, crates of records, MPC, and computer into his room. When his hands were too swollen, Ma Dukes would massage his stiffened fingers so Dilla could work on the tracks, letting his doctors listen to the beats through his headphones.

Sometimes he’d wake Ma Dukes up in the middle of the night, asking her to help move him from his bed to a reclining chair so he could work a bit more comfortably. His only focus was finishing the album. Donuts was released on Stones Throw on February 7, 2006, his 32nd birthday. Dilla died three days later.

“It was crazy to hear all that soul,” Illa J says of one haunting track called “Don’t Cry.” “I got to be in the right mode to listen to it. It’s emotional for me. I can feel my brother talking to me through the music.”

THREE DAYS AFTER DILLA DIED, HIS ELDEST DAUGHTER, PAIGE, TURNED 6. “That was a low blow,” says her mother, Monica Whitlow. “To have to tell my baby that before her birthday was the worst. We didn’t get to say goodbye.” The 29-year-old, who knew Dilla before his career took off, still lives in Detroit. She emphasizes that their relationship was never about money. “To have him back here, breathing and living, that’s worth more than money any day,” she says. “But it pisses me off, everything that’s going on with this estate. It’s ridiculous ’cause it’s been three years, and my baby has not seen anything from this estate. Nobody has granted James his final wish.”

Although Dilla’s will stipulates that all assets be divided among his mother, his two daughters, and his brother, the executor of the estate is his accountant Arty Erk, and as back-up, there’s his attorney, Micheline Levine and then his mother. Ma Dukes says she grew so frustrated that communications broke down between her and the executor. Erk explains that payments from the estate were delayed because Dilla has an outstanding tax debt in the “healthy six figures.” He says he is negotiating a payment plan with the IRS and that a petition has been filed with the probate court in order to get family allowances paid to Dilla’s children.

The other major issue facing the estate is that so many people are using Dilla’s beats without permission. Dilla would often create beat CDs and hand them out to friends.

“It’s been difficult to police,” Erk admits, adding that he’s at the tail end of litigation with Busta Rhymes. “An album was released by Busta on the Internet called Dillagence without authorization,” Levine explains. “And, of course, we’re now unable to use those tracks and exploit those downloads. Everybody downloaded it for free.” Attempts to reach out to Busta were not returned.

Ma Dukes counters that Busta paid Dilla for those tracks years ago. “He got a raw deal,” she says. “Busta didn’t take anything from anybody.” Ma Dukes says she feels bad that her son’s friend had to go through such rough treatment by his estate.

The same scenario has played out several times since Dilla’s death. The estate has settled “four or five” similar cases, negotiating what they believe is fair market value for the beats. “A lot of people are coming out of the woodwork with things that he did for them,” says Erk, who took out an ad in Billboard magazine in April 2008, notifying people to stop using Dilla’s material. The estate also sent out cease-and-desist letters to various entertainers as well as people throwing events in Dilla’s name-including his own mother, she says. “Her dream was to open a camp where kids with lupus could have normal lives,” says Joy Yoon, an L.A. journalist who interviewed Ma Dukes shortly after her son’s death and later offered to help her raise funds for what was to be called the J Dilla Foundation. “But then she said she was put on hold by the lawyers.”

Ma Dukes insists she will go on with her plans for the foundation, establishing it in her own name. “It’s been over two years, and they’re talking the same crap,” she says. “I don’t have a Ph.D., but I know how to use a phone and talk to somebody and make arrangements. It’s just not an excuse. They have no respect for the fact that I had anything to do with bringing him into this world.”

Meanwhile, she has voiced concerns about Dilla’s will itself, which he signed on September 8, 2005, nearly six months before his death. “I don’t even know if he really knew what he was signing,” she says. “I don’t think he would have signed anything if he’d known it would be like this now.” She has hired an attorney who is also representing her son and Paige’s mother, Monica Whitlow, who says that legal action is “in the works.”

“His estate is fucked up,” Q-Tip says. “I know the lawyers are saying that he had certain tax issues and all that stuff. But you were getting paid to represent him when he was alive, so it shouldn’t be any of that. Ma Dukes ain’t getting nothing, and the kids ain’t getting nothing. It’s a horrible thing.”

During the last year of her son’s life, Maureen Yancey tested positive for lupus. She says she’s not worried about dying and has accepted the fact that she and her husband must now live in a rental property in a neighborhood she describes as “a war-torn zone.” What keeps her up at night is her grand children. “I just want the girls to be taken care of,” she says. “That’s all.”

In response to a petition filed by her mother, Joyleete Hunter, Dilla’s youngest
daughter, Ja’Mya, has begun receiving money from the estate, and Erk says Paige should start receiving payouts sometime in early 2009. “Oh really?” says Whitlow. “That’s new information for me.” She has had few conversations with Erk and says that when she informed him she was working with Ma Dukes’ lawyer, he warned her, “This is going to get ugly.” But she remains undeterred. “I gotta speak up for my baby ’cause I been quiet too long,” she says.”He hasn’t seen ugly. I can show him ugly.”

In the meantime, Ma Dukes says please don’t cry for her. “It’s really rough for everybody out there. But prayers help,” she says with a sigh.”Pray for my strength.”

thanks to RIK

Q-Tip – Move Prod. J Dilla (video by Rik Cordero)

thanks to Moovmnt

Stones Throw Podcast #37 – Gaslamp Killer vs. Heliocentrics + TURN IT UP! J Dilla Box Set

Gaslamp Killer vs. Heliocentrics.mp3

The Heliocentrics myspace

TheGaslampKiller.com

CASSETTE J Dilla Ruff Draft. “…straight from the muthaf#%kn cassette!” Released only with the TURN IT UP box set.
T-SHIRT TURN IT UP! A Little Louder. The now-classic design by Alfred Hawkins. Exclusive colorway
CITATION Reckless Driving Ticket. We ran a bunch of L.A. parking ticket lookalikes and ticketed people outside Ruff Draft listening parties in Spring 2007. There was a few left over, all included in these boxes.
PHOTO J Dilla taken by B+ for the Jaylib album in Detroit, 2003.
THE BOX 15×12x3 inches. Custom designed box with cassette holder. All shipped in a protective mailer.

$39.95 plus shipping click here!

StonesThrow.com

Robert Glasper – J Dillalude (Simon S Extended Edit)

Robert Glasper – J Dillalude (Simon S Extended Edit).mp3

via Wuzz Mag

Madlib finally joins BBE’s Beat Generation

Madlib’s long-anticipated addition to BBE’s Beat Generation series will be released on Rapster/BBE this September 30th. Fitting comfortably into a series whose previous contributors include the late J Dilla, DJ Jazzy Jeff, and Pete Rock, Madlib will deliver one of his most straight forward neck snapping hip-hop albums to date. – Stones Throw Records

WLIB AM: King of the Wigflip CD/2LP
1. The New Resident – Beat Konducta
2. Blow The Horns On ‘Em – Guilty Simpson
3. The Plan Pt. 1 – Georgia Anne Muldrow
4. Tension – Beat Konducta
5. Gamble On Ya Boy – Defari
6. The Ox (805) – MED feat. Poke
7. All Virtue – Beat Konducta
8. Blinfold Test #10 (He Don’t Play) – J.Rocc
9. The Thang-Thang – Price Po
10. Heat – Madlib
11. Smoke Break – Beat Konducta
12. The Plan (Reprise) – Beat Konducta
13. Life – Karriem Riggins
14. Parklight – Beat Konducta
15. Yo Yo Affair Pt. 1 & 2 – Frezna
16. I Want It Back – The Professionals (Oh No & Madlib)
17. Disco Dance – Beat Konducta
18. What It Do – Liberation
19. Take That Money – Roc ‘C’ feat. Oh No
20. Drinks Up! – Frank N Dank
21. The Way That I Live – Stacy Epps
22. Ratrace – Murs
23. Go! – Guilty Simpson
24. Stop – Beat Konducta

www.stonesthrow.com/madlib
www.myspace.com/madlib
www.bbemusic.com

thanks to Universoul

Daru Spirit & Soul-Hop Sampler 08′ Hosted and Compiled by Marc Mac (4Hero)

Combine live instruments with raw, soulful hip hop production and you have a distinct sound that is different from that of a beat machine (sampler/mpc) only.

This element is what makes Rusic Music one of the most sought out production companies in underground hip hop. Founded in 1996 by drummer/producer Daru Jones, Rusic takes pride in creating music for unsigned artist thus providing a platform for talent that is yet heard by the masses. Despite its growing popularity Rusic Music has maintained its integrity. Production is only granted to artists who create music that inspire and deliver positive messages.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Daru – Take Your Hand – Dilla ft. Rena.mp3

www.myspace.com/darubeats

Dilla.Ghost.Doom. coming soon…

www.stonesthrow.com/news/dillaghostdoom

Redman & J Dilla – The Saga Continues (DJ Soul remix)