J Dilla
James Dewitt Yancey, better known by the stage names J Dilla and Jay Dee, was an American record producer, rapper, and composer. He emerged from the mid-1990s underground hip hop scene in Detroit, Michigan, as a member of the group Slum Village. He was also a founding member of the Soulquarians, a musical collective active during the late 1990s and early 2000s. He and Madlib collaborated as the duo Jaylib, releasing the album Champion Sound. Yancey's final album was Donuts, which was released three days before his death. He was also known for producing The Pharcyde album Labcabincalifornia.
Yancey died at the age of 32 from a combination of TTP and lupus. Although his life was short, he is considered to be one of the most influential producers in hip hop and popular music. J Dilla's music raised the artistic level of hip-hop production in Detroit. According to The Guardian, "His affinity for crafting lengthy, melodic loops peppered with breakbeats and vocal samples took instrumental hip-hop into new, more musically complex realms." In particular, his approach to drum programming, with its loose, or "drunk", style that eschews the use of quantization, has been influential on producers and drummers.
Biography
Early life
Yancey grew up in Detroit, Michigan. The family lived in a house on the northeast corner of McDougall and Nevada, on the east side of Detroit. Yancey's parents had musical backgrounds; his mother, Maureen "Ma Dukes" Yancey, is a former opera singer and his father, Beverly Dewitt Yancey, was a jazz bassist, and performed Globetrotters half-time shows for several years. Yancey's mother said that he could "match pitch perfect harmony" before he learned how to speak.Along with a range of other musical genres, Yancey developed a passion for hip hop music. After transferring from Davis Aerospace Technical High School to Pershing High School, his classmates T3 and Baatin joined him in rap battles; the three later formed the rap group Slum Village. Yancey also took up beat-making using a simple tape deck as the center of his studio. In his teenage years, he "stayed in the basement alone" to train himself to produce beats with his growing record collection.
Early career
In 1992, Yancey met the Detroit musician Amp Fiddler, who let him use his Akai MPC, a music workstation, which he quickly mastered. Fiddler, while playing keyboards with Funkadelic on the 1994 Lollapalooza tour, met Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest, a group also in the lineup. Fiddler introduced Q-Tip to Yancey, who gave Q-Tip a Slum Village demo tape. In 1995, Yancey and MC Phat Kat formed 1st Down and became the first Detroit hip hop group to sign with a major label. The deal ended after one single when the label ended the contract.In 1995, Yancey recorded the Yester Years EP with 5 Elementz. In 1996, he formed Slum Village and recorded what would become their debut album Fantastic, Vol. 1 at RJ Rice Studios. Upon its release in 1997, the album quickly became popular with fans of Detroit hip hop. Many journalists compared Slum Village to A Tribe Called Quest. However, Yancey said he felt uncomfortable with the comparison:
By the mid-1990s Yancey had a string of singles and remix projects for artists such as Janet Jackson, The Pharcyde, De La Soul, Busta Rhymes, A Tribe Called Quest as well as Q-Tip solo, and others. Many of these productions were released without Yancey's name attribution, being credited to the Ummah, a production collective composed of him, Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest, and later Raphael Saadiq of Tony! Toni! Toné!. However, he was given songwriting credit on all of his non-remix productions under the Ummah.
Under this umbrella, Yancey produced original songs and remixes for Janet Jackson, Busta Rhymes, Brand New Heavies, Something For the People, trip hop artists Crustation and many others. He handled production on seven tracks from The Pharcyde's album Labcabincalifornia, released in the holiday season of 1995 and Hello, the debut album by Poe, released earlier that year on Modern Records.
Performing career
2000 marked the major label debut of Slum Village with Fantastic, Vol. 2, creating a new following for Yancey as a producer and MC. He was also a founding member of the production collective known as The Soulquarians which earned him more recognition. He later worked with Erykah Badu, Poe, Talib Kweli, and Common—contributing heavily to the latter's critically acclaimed breakthrough album, Like Water for Chocolate.His debut as a solo artist came in 2001 with the single "Fuck the Police", followed by the album Welcome 2 Detroit, which began British independent record label BBE's "Beat Generation" series. In 2001, Yancey began using the name J Dilla to differentiate himself from Jermaine Dupri who also goes by "J.D." He left Slum Village to pursue a major label solo career with MCA Records.
In 2002, Yancey produced Frank-N-Dank's 48 Hours, as well as a solo album, but neither record was ever released, although the former surfaced through bootlegging. When Yancey finished working with Frank-N-Dank on the 48 Hours album, MCA Records requested a record with a larger commercial appeal, and the artists re-recorded the majority of the tracks, this time using little to no samples. Despite this, neither versions of the album were successful, and Yancey stated that he was disappointed that the music never got out to the fans.
Around this time, Yancey also assisted in the production of singer and fellow Soulquarian Bilal's second album, Love for Sale. The singer credited Yancey with showing him a unique approach to drum programming: "He had this thing where no matter what he picked up he could bend his will into it. Just because you hear it so strong in your head you can throw the funk in it."
Yancey was signed to a solo deal with MCA Records in 2002. Although Yancey was known as a producer rather than an MC, he chose to rap on the album and have the music produced by some of his favorite producers, such as Madlib, Pete Rock, Hi-Tek, Supa Dave West, Kanye West, Nottz, Waajeed and others. The album was shelved due to internal changes at the label and MCA.
While the record with MCA stalled, Yancey recorded Ruff Draft, released exclusively to vinyl by German label Groove Attack. The album was also unsuccessful, but his work from this point on was increasingly released through independent record labels. In a 2003 interview with Groove Attack, Yancey talked about this change of direction:
Later life and death
The Los Angeles producer and MC Madlib began collaborating with Yancey, and the pair formed the group Jaylib in 2002, releasing an album called Champion Sound in 2003. Yancey relocated from Detroit to Los Angeles in 2004 and appeared on tour with Jaylib in Spring 2004.Yancey's illness and medication caused dramatic weight loss in 2003 onwards, forcing him to publicly confirm speculation about his health in 2004. Despite a slower output of major releases and production credits in 2004 and 2005, his cult status remained strong within his core audience, as evidenced by unauthorized circulation of his underground "beat tapes", mostly through internet file sharing.
Articles in the publications URB and XXL confirmed rumors of ill health and hospitalization during this period, but these were downplayed by Jay himself. The seriousness of his condition became public in November 2005 when Yancey toured Europe performing from a wheelchair. It was later revealed that he suffered from thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, and lupus. Near the end of his life, he was mostly hospital bound, which eventually left him in debt–after his medical insurance was dropped following a late payment. His mother, Maureen Yancey, recalled paying $500,000 a month.
Yancey died on February 10, 2006, at his home in Los Angeles, three days after his 32nd birthday and the release of his final album, Donuts. Maureen said that the cause was cardiac arrest.
Musical style
According to Dan Charnas, Yancey juxtaposed straight and swung styles, creating "a new, pleasurable, disorienting rhythmic friction and new time-feel". He used an Akai MPC3000 and disabled the quantize feature to create his signature "off-kilter" sampling style.Posthumous releases
At the time of his death, Yancey had several projects planned for future completion and release. According to founding Slum Village member T3 in an interview in March 2015, Yancey had about 150 unreleased beats, some of which featured on Slum Village's album entitled Yes!, released June 16, 2015.The Shining was "75% completed when Dilla died" and was finished by Karriem Riggins and later released on August 8, 2006, on BBE Records.
Ruff Draft was reissued as a double CD/LP set in March 2007 and is sometimes considered his third solo album. The reissue contains unreleased material from the Ruff Draft sessions and instrumentals. It was also released in a cassette tape format, paying homage to Yancey's dirty, grimy sound.
Sniperlite was an EP released by the hip hop collaboration Dilla Ghost Doom, consisting of Yancey, Ghostface Killah, and MF Doom. It was recorded sometime in 2005 before Yancey's passing. It was subsequently released in 2008 by Stones Throw Records.
Jay Love Japan was announced in 2005 as his debut release on the Operation Unknown label. Though it saw a 2006 release in Japan, it was heavily bootlegged elsewhere and did not receive an official release until 2016.
Champion Sound, Yancey's and Madlib's collaborative album, was reissued in June 2007 by Stones Throw Records as a 2-CD Deluxe Edition with instrumentals and b-sides.
Yancey Boys, the debut album by Yancey's younger brother John Yancey, was released in 2008 on Delicious Vinyl Records. It is produced entirely by Dilla and features rapping by his brother, under the name 'Illa J'. Stones Throw Records released a digital instrumental version of the album in 2009.
Jay Stay Paid, an album featuring 28 previously unreleased instrumental tracks made at various points in his career, was released in 2009 by Nature Sounds. Vocals to a select few of the tracks were provided by rappers who were close to Yancey though the majority of the album is instrumental. The project was mixed and arranged by Pete Rock.
In 2010, unreleased production and vocals from Yancey were featured on Slum Village's sixth studio album Villa Manifesto, the first album with all five members.
In December 2011, Jonathan Taylor, CEO of the Yancey Music Group, told the UK's Conspiracy Worldwide radio show that the album Rebirth of Detroit was ready for a May 2012 release. On May 25, 2012, Mahogani Music released a limited edition 12" vinyl titled Dillatroit/Rebirth Promo EP, leading up to the official release of Rebirth of Detroit on June 12, 2012.
In 2014, Yancey's long-lost MCA Records album entitled The Diary was scheduled for release, but was delayed to April 15, 2016, via Mass Appeal Records. Intended for release in 2002, the album is a collection of Yancey's vocal performances over production by Madlib, Pete Rock, Nottz, House Shoes, Karriem Riggins, and others. The first single is the album's intro cut, "The Introduction."
In 2020, Dres of Black Sheep announced that he would be releasing a collaborative album with Yancey titled No Words, with unreleased instrumentals of Yancey's provided with the cooperation of his mother.
In February 2021, the 20th anniversary edition of Welcome 2 Detroit was released.
In March 2023, the J Dilla Foundation partnered with Kano Computing for a 10-year deal to release exclusive music on the Stem Player. They released J Dilla’s Stems Vol. 1 with the deal's announcement, followed by volumes 2 and 3 later.