James Dewitt Yancey (February 7, 1974 – February 10, 2006)
on the birthday and three days before the anniversary of the death of J-Dilla i thought i would bring up the artistry of the music that he made. as a person with experience "making beats" i would say i am authorized to put my two cents in as to what is and what is not good quality production. true, all music is subjective to the taste of the listener, but there's a difference between knowing something is catchy and something that has had time and expertise put into it. the way that dilla chopped beats was pretty far ahead of it's time... from listening you can tell that there is some complicated arranging of samples going on there. artistry is all about the details...
the album donuts is dilla's opus. it is the album that best exemplifies what dilla was all about.. what's the expression? "often imitated never duplicated" right? check out this track for an example of how dilla manipulates a sample to take it from a loop into its own completely new thing:
j-dilla rest in peace.
you were and still are an inspiration to a whole generation of beat makers, and provided us with some dope music.
