Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm

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This engineering/technological minutia is delivered in layman’s terms. Dan drops the science like it’s scalding, and does so in a language that just about anybody can easily understand.

What that meant, as James understood it, was that Q-Tip was essentially offering to be his manager. One of the most extraordinary music books I’ve ever read … If you care about music and want to experience it more deeply … this book is full of revelations’– Craig Morgan Teicher, The Paris Review This is the story of a complicated man and his machines; his family, friends, partners, and celebrity collaborators; and his undeniable legacy. Based on nearly two hundred original interviews, and filled with graphics that teach us to feel and “see” the rhythm of Dilla’s beats, Dilla Time is a book as defining and unique as J Dilla’s music itself. Equal parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century. This intimate, honest profile is the definitive J Dilla tome, an illuminating, intoxicating, and sobering sojourn into a man’s life, legacy, artistic contributions and musical revolution by way of groundbreaking productions, prolific output, ever-loving communities, and the seemingly-infinite reverberations of his genius.And then, thirteen seconds in, the much louder Manzel beat enters, and that doesn’t line up with the drum machine beat. It is closer to being on the grid, but it isn’t in straight time either: you can see how the little markers are mostly late. I've been reading @ethanhein since before I ever conceived "Dilla Time," so this was a treat. https://t.co/NV7V4xTkJ3 By no means is Dilla Time an easy read. There are nightmarish tales of his rugged bout with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura and lupus, detailing excruciating hospital experiences, a possible misdiagnosis, and Dilla’s own fears foreshadowing his eventual demise. After his death, the author confronts some painful realities with regard to the estate, leftover tax debt, and in-fighting between the heirs, some folks talking out of turn, plus lawyers, lengthy lawsuits, lost albums, and all the bullsh*t that has dogged Dilla’s legacy since he passed away in February 2006. Harmony and rhythm are separate things. Sound and color are both waves, does that make them the same thing? Water and strychnine are both made out of atoms, does that make them the same thing?

Exceptional… Charnas has done well to untangle the ever-evolving skein of art and money and family and friends [Dilla’s] legend encompasses … A rich read… Deeply and vividly reported’– Robert Christgau, Observer

The greatest hip-hop producer of all time is getting the love and care his legacy deserves. Dilla Time is a master class.” As an associate professor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University, Charnas taught a course called "Topics in Recorded Music: J Dilla" that discussed J Dilla's musical techniques and influence. [5] [6] He began work researching and reporting for the book in 2017. [7] Charnas interviewed over 200 friends, family members, and collaborators of J Dilla throughout the research process. [5] In Dilla Time, Dan Charnas chronicles the life of James DeWitt Yancey, from his gifted Detroit childhood to his rise as a sought-after hip-hop producer to the rare blood disease that caused his premature death. He follows the people who kept Dilla and his ideas alive. And he rewinds the histories of American rhythms: from the birth of Motown soul to funk, techno, and disco. Here, music is a story of what happens when human and machine times are synthesized into something new.

In that regard, I found Dilla Time to be nothing short of a holy scroll, a bold, brilliant testimony, a clinic in dot-connecting, musical-mapping, and hip-hop nerd sh*t. The story woven within is a profound portrait of a confounding pioneer, a thorough education, rumination, and stimulation, a game-changing historical document and love letter to a lost prophet. a b Monroe, Jazz (22 September 2022). "Questlove Is Making a J Dilla Feature Documentary". Pitchfork . Retrieved 5 March 2023. I recently finished reading Dan Charnas’ book Dilla Time. It’s a good one! If you are interested in how hip-hop works, you should read it. The book’s major musicological insight is elegantly summed up by this image: Among generations of family, dozens of friends, fans, disciples, label reps, lawyers, rappers, peers, and competitors, not all of their memories, opinions, narratives or motivations would necessarily align, and yet the author was able to extract potent recollections from nearly every relationship of any consequence during James Yancey’s short time on Earth. It’s a delicate dance only made possible by the author’s unwavering integrity and transparency, as evidenced by his meticulously-footnoting every last discrepancy—no small feat.There are some rhythmic things that I find interesting, but harmony is way more important, at least to me. (This is a big part of the reason I don’t really listen to rap. Alice in Chains, for example, did a lot of cool stuff with meter (having sections of the same song in different meters, using exotic time signatures like 7/8, etc…) Of all the music he had been working on since meeting Q-Tip, these were the first to hit the market, and the most auspicious. “Runnin’” became the lead-off single and video from the album, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard rap chart. a b c d Sanfiorenzo, Dimas (1 February 2022). " 'Dilla Time' Author Dan Charnas on Why J Dilla Is In A League Of His Own - Okayplayer". www.okayplayer.com . Retrieved 5 March 2023. In diving into Dilla’s kaleidoscopic, voluminous catalog of releases, beat tapes, bootlegs, overseas rarities and the like, Charnas does not let anything get by him – with regards to the music James made, who he made it with, and precisely how it was executed. He tunnels from the inspiration to the samples, the equipment to the cannabis, and oscillates even further into the Church of Dilla and its mythical abyss.

You took what I did and added sheen to it,” he said. “People gotta hear your shit. We gotta figure something out. I gotta get you out here.” Schwartz, Daniel (24 August 2017). "A Professor's Journey to Discover the Greatness of J Dilla With His Students". Complex . Retrieved 9 March 2023. In 1999, writer Dan Charnas met J Dilla and Common while the two musicians were working on Common's album Like Water for Chocolate at J Dilla's home studio in Conant Gardens, Detroit. [4] [5] Charnas cites this meeting as "the real origin of the book." [5] The persistent negativity and conflict in the wake of his death are almost a bit too much to bear, but now fans—and even his friends—are able to better grasp the fissures and disconnects that have occasionally drowned out the air-horns and accolades that deserve to rain down on Dilla unabated. Damn, that’s crazy,” James replied. “I’m surprised.” Something about this gesture didn’t compute for James: a producer promoting someone who could potentially be competition. But Q-Tip was from a different school of thought: brotherhood.Charnas, Dan (2022). Dilla time: the life and afterlife of J Dilla, the hip-hop producer who reinvented rhythm. New York: MCD, Farrar, Straus and Giroux . Retrieved 7 September 2023. a b c Lentini, Liza (1 February 2022). "Dan Charnas's Dilla Time: The Life And Afterlife Of J Dilla, The Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm". Spin . Retrieved 5 March 2023.