Unless you are a Detroit Native, or an avid Hip-Hop fan, you may have never heard of J Dilla before. James Yancey is largely credited for innovating hip-hop and mastering the art of the sample, leading the way for other prodigious samplers like Kanye West and Madlib to dominate the scene later on. While J Dilla's career will forever be influential to all who come after him, he has a short catalog of music to offer (aside from the posthumous EP's that drop now and then). However, Dilla's grand opus, "Donuts" would be the project that would change Hip-Hop forever particularly with his masterful sampling.
While hip-hop is synonymous to most of us with sampling, and largely has been attached to the genre since its conception with Grandmaster Flash, no one had really used samples in the way J Dilla did. Dilla's creative process was largely based in his extensive knowledge of Jazz. Yancey's Father and Mother were both in an acapella jazz group, so it was common for jazz and singing to flow throughout his home. As Yancey moved toward his career as a hip-hop producer he was notorious for having thousands of records alphabetized (mostly jazz) to use in his arsenal at the right time. And if that wasn't enough Dilla would pull out a keyboard, drums, or guitar and play the parts himself.
Yancey's most creative aspect of his process can be found in his use of the Akai MPC3000, a music drum machine-turned-sampler in his hands. At the time it was common for many other producers at the time to quantize their drum patterns on their drum machines, splitting up the beats perfectly and then looping them infinitely. Yancey however would prefer to play the drum part on the Akai live, creating a more alive and rhythmic sound on his beats that stood out among his contemporaries. Yancey would also use his Akai to insert more than just drum samples in his songs giving all of his samples a percussive feel. This would lead way to the "chopping" of soul samples that are so predominant in hip-hop today. Most of the producers nowadays that are famous for their sample prowess like Kanye and Madlib cite Dilla as their inspiration and golden standard for sampling.
In many ways I would argue J Dilla to be the a Big-C Creative. Yancey went up against giants of hip-hop producers in the late nineties and early 2000's, but still stood out above all his contemporaries and was unmatched in his production. While Yancey may not have gotten all of the roses while he could still smell them, his influence in his sampling techniques would change hip-hop forever, leading to the birth of a new era of hip-hop in the early 2000's led by Kanye West, The Roots, Madlib, and Common. It is safe to say that without Yancey's Donuts we may not have ever seen the golden era of hip-hop.
For a more in-depth look at Dilla's use of the Akai MPC3000 watch the video below:
How J Dilla Humanized his MPC3000
Sources:
https://www.npr.org/sections/ablogsupreme/2013/02/07/171349007/why-j-dilla-may-be-jazzs-latest-great-innovator
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jan/27/j-dilla-suite-ma-dukes
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/18/j-dillas-the-diary
Thanks for sharing this! This is one of those creatives that you kind of can't believe you never knew of once you find out about them. I read the links you shared and watched the video and everything about Yancey is so cool. It very obvious that he has had a massive influence on all of the big names I had heard of and I'm glad to know who was behind the original innovation.
ReplyDelete