The Legacy of J Dilla / Jay Dee / James Yancey

J Dilla from the B+ photo gallery at Stones Throw
Above: J Dilla in Detroit, 2003
Below: Madlib and J Dilla in Brazil, 2005

“We met B+ when Stones Throw relocated from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 2000. He shot Madlib early on, while working on his Yesterdays New Quintet project in the impromptu studio he had set up in the living room at the Stones Throw house, and continued with Madlib over the years for Shades of Blue, Champion Sound, and Beat Konducta. In 2003 we asked B+ to visit J Dilla in Detroit while Dilla and Madlib were working on Jaylib. The photos B+ captured of Dilla on that trip have become the some of the most definitive images of the producer. In another photo seen below, he got Madlib & Dilla together on a short trip to Brazil in 2005. We planned to get pictures for Donuts on that trip, but Dilla’s unstable health during that time caused him to cut the trip short. ” – Jeff Jank

From allhiphop.com:

Fans around the world will now have the chance to hear new, previously unheard material by J Dilla, thanks to a record store owner in Detroit, who discovered hundreds lost tapes and other material created by the producer.

Maureen “Ma Dukes” Yancey is now in possession of hundreds of tapes created and produced by her son J Dilla, who died of February 10, 2006 from Lupus. The treasure trove of J Dilla material was found by Jeff Bubeck, who owns the Royal Oak-based record store UHF. Bubeck was cleaning out an abandoned storage unit storage he took control of, when he found over 7,000-8,000 records, notebooks, notes and other handwritten artifacts by J Dilla.

In an exclusive Q&A with AllHipHop.com, Ms. Yancey revealed that Bubeck declined offers from around the world to sell J Dilla’s material and returned a box of original beat tapes, letters and other items.

“It was overwhelming to see this handwriting again and to see how he marked his records, with his silver marker,” Ms. Yancey told AllHipHop.com. “That was his favorite color, the silver marker.”

According to Ms. Yancey, J Dilla, born James Dewitt Yancey, left to record in California, but before he left, he wanted to sell over 20,000 albums from his collection.

Talib with special guest Yasiin Bey will play Paris this Friday 9th of March at Le Bataclan.
Thanks to Mass & mc*5

While some consider Dilla’s strong suit to be production, others look to his rhyming for inspiration. This early Slum Village track, “Tell Me What You Want” is a fine example of his ill penmanship. It was one of the first efforts as Baatin, T3 and Dilla came out of the Senepod crew name and became Slum Village. At the time Dilla didn’t even have a drum machine, so this beat was actually made using the “pause and record” tape method. It was never released. Courtesy of Bling47

Stones Throw has reissued J Dilla’s Ruff Draft Instrumentals with a long-overdue LP cover.

These self-produced tracks make up one of the late J Dilla’s least known works during his lifetime. Released on vinyl only in February 2003, Ruff Draft EP was elusive and virtually unknown to the casual Dilla fan until Stones Throw’s reissue in 2007. Recorded in the wake of a failed deal with major label MCA, Dilla returned to solo recordings as a fiercely independent artist with Ruff Draft.

Tracks on this single vinyl disc were taken from J Dilla’s original master tapes, mixed and remastered by Dave Cooley & Kelly Hibbert.

Link: J Dilla – Ruff Draft Beats

February 3, Manchester UK: J Dilla Changed My Life at The Ruby Lounge with Maureen Yancey, Phat Kat TICKETS
February 4, Brighton UK: J Dilla Changed My Life at Stickey Mike’s TICKETS
February 5, London UK: J Dilla Changed My Life at Scala, Kings Cross TICKETS
February 10, Detroit: Dilla Day at Fillmore, with Busta Rhymes TICKETS
February 18, Baltimore: Forever Shining at Otto Bar with Guilty Simpson TICKETS

This was created by Alan Gonzalez at HB Creative SF and released on the same day as Dilla’s classic album Donuts is reissued by Stones Throw with the “smile” album cover. Stones Throw has also created a 27×27-inch poster of the album cover.

Link:
J Dilla “Donuts” 2LP / Poster

The #1 winner of Stones Throw’s Video Contest, “Last Donut of the Night” directed by Tuomas Vauhkonen and Jeremias Nieminen.

Runner up #5 in Stones Throw’s video contest.

Runner up #8 in Stones Throw’s video contest.