Beat Street

Well, as my city floods, I have no choice but stay in and deliver up some tracks for you guys to check out. Tonight I'm going to talk about J Dilla.

I often get into a debate with hip hop heads about who is the greatest MC of all time. Considering most of them rest this blog, I'm not going to get into it again. What I CAN do is talk about producers. Beat makers. The men behind the music.

So why J Dilla? First of all, I'm going to spare you the BS and link you over to Wikipedia for general background:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_Dilla


Quick run through of the things that make a difference. Detriot boy. Grew up on 7 mile. R.I.P. He spent his final days in a hospital bed making the album "Donuts" which is a masterpiece.

Next note of importance is "Champion Sound" with Madlib (group called Jaylib). The group was called by many critiques "your favorite hip hop producer's favorite producers" first on Pitchfork and was then picked up by other media.

Finally, Ruff Draft which is more of less the leftovers and unmade beats from his career. While there are other great things that he did (chart topping songs with many artists, other albums like Jay Love Japan) I think these three albums represent the best J dilla has to offer.

Thankfully, you don't need to be in my apartment to hear these amazing albums. Enough time has passed for You Tube to contain many, many great songs from these albums. Give it a listen.

I suggest the following tracks: The Shining, Last Donut of the Night, Workinonit, Two Can Win, and Bye.

I feel like I could ride off into space with his beats. The use of strange Jazz loops, soft electro, and solid D&B makes his music trully amazing.


On a different note (and I think a fairly easy connection) check out my FAVORITE new group right now out of LA doing a J Dilla tribute!