the cult of dilla, c/d?

rap nerds are great cause you find out about shit like this:

why is there so much negative feeling on this thread??!?!??!?!? it was an innocent question!

btw i am listening to beatkonducta 5/6 for the 4th time today as i write this. especially digging on track 13 : "when you're faced with ... doubt, have no fear"

also like the sun ra quote about "discipline and precision" and the bit with the guy going "i can't understand, i'm trying to understand"

i just wonder about stuff like this that has a bigass "j dilla changed the game forever" essay in the booklet

also what do you guys think of herbs in all-stussy outfits and bamboo elk leather sneakers buying anything that mentions "jay dee" in the PR on sight, is that classic or dud

why is there so much negative feeling on this thread??!?!??!?!? it was an innocent question!

lol, then "let the dead rest". what didja expect?

If kids want to believe that j dilla or other talented people who have died changed the game, let em. why do you care so much about this?

FREE DILLA

cause dilla changed my life ;_;

haha I'm glad someone said something. Donuts wasn't even as good as Beat Konducta 1 & 2, come on.

But how does it compare to big and rich

u need some icy hot for dat ass or what deej

people people why are we fighting

f all this whining, this is my jam

hes classic, the fans are almost all dud.

the bbe welcome to detroit album, ruff draft, slum village's fantastic 1 and 2 (they shd never have split up cos he did his best stuff with them) and the j88 ep are all classic. i think what he did with tribe on the love movement is beatwise at least, classic too (that album is unfairly panned in general - in a way i wish dilla had someone like tip working with him later on cos i think a lot of his beats could have done with someone making them sound less like demos). i never much liked lwfc, barring a few songs (always thought the beats were twee).

dilla was just amazingly hit and miss, tho you did get the occasional gem (and half the time he worked with average mcs, or the guys he did work with didnt have much chemistry with him - most of my favourite dilla tracks are those with him rapping). most of the obsessiveness about him seems to come from producers who think we can all hear the amazing technique that they see him using when hes making beats. most of the time tho, we cant.

"i just wonder whether his "influence" has been broadly overstated in some quarters"

it has and it hasnt. detroit producers like black milk have obv been influenced, then theres sa-ra and all those guys, and i dunno if its just me, but a fair amount of that dr dre programming like on that last busta album seemed dilla influenced to me too (its just funkier and fuller).

^^^by far the best post of this thread

tbh, i dont think any rappers, except SV really, knew how to ride his beats as well as he did... (i always wondered wtf guys like busta were doing constantly getting dilla beats when they all sounded like duds - see: the anarchy lp). the fact dilla apparently never really 'produced' anyone and only sent them beat tapes in the mail prob didnt help either.

(i shd say SV and various detroit emcees - frank n dank on pause were perfect).

Getting down on the D by Ugly Ed

Pipecock/[Name Suppressed]

Disclaimer: This is a work of non-profit amateur fan fiction written just for fun. No infringement is meant on the rights of RF, Tom Cox, FXHE records, The Belleville Three or anybody else. No profit is being made by this story.

([Name Suppressed])

I was lying on the bed in my room next to Pipecock. After our moments of passion he had fallen asleep. I felt somehow strange. I had had so many bad times with him that the fact that we became lovers was almost unbelievable. Remembering some our arguments and flamewars made me think about the oddness of my relationship with Pipecock. I’ve spent years convincing trying to make myself believe that I hate him to hide my admiration for him. His neckbeard now wet with love- sweat and man juice, his sapphire eyes, now closed in his sleep… All the past years I had tried to hate him in vain when all I had really wanted was to touch him, feel him close to me, love him.

*Flashback:*

Pipecock was on a high. All week the props had been pouring in to Infinitestatemachine from real cats all over the globe who shared his passion for the true, soulful shit from the soul/disco continuum. He could feel that his time was coming – any day now he would finally have crushed the evil forces of rave and the world would acknowledge that he and he alone was the saviour of Detroit and his name would be enshrined above even that of Juan Atkins. Sweetest of all was the fact that his arch-rival and nemesis [Name Suppressed] ‘Minimal’ Fitzgerald had retired from blogging. His famous cock, virtually brandished wherever dance music was discussed, thickened in his shapeless brown pants at the thought of this final victory. And tonight he would savour his triumph in the sweetest possible way – Omar-S was playing Pittsburgh, and he was playing at Realshitforrealcats, Pipecock’s own club night.

That night, after several hours of the choicest cuts, the dancefloor was packed, many new faces were there, evidence that Pipecock’s crusade rolled on, gathering more and more momentum with every passing day. Evidence that all those years spent relentlessly pursuing retards on messageboards were paying off. The music surged in his veins and he bobbed his head even more fiercely than before. Suddenly the music changed – a thin, reedy and impossibly sweet riff clanged out over the crowded dancefloor. Pipecock felt a strange feeling come over him – he wanted to put his hands in the air and jump up and down really fast. Then an overdriven organ surged in over a pounding electro bassline. Pipecock’s body twitched with a fierce passion that seemed to come from outside him. He was a slave to the rave!

The last bars of Booka Shade faded out and, drenched in sweat and utterly overcome by a mixture of elation and disgust, Pipecock’s legs gave way and he clutched at the nearest body for support. Dimly, he heard a soft Irish brogue say “I never expected to see you like this”. Realisation slowly dawning on him, he looked up: “Fitzgerald!” he gasped.

But before the two rivals could begin ransacking their stores of epithets they were distracted – Omar was playing “The art of stalking”!

“Our troubles can wait, [Name Suppressed]” said Pipecock, “Let’s dance!” The next five hours were a whirl of limbs, grins and vintage synths. Time after time Omar dropped something that satisfied both Pipecock’s need for authenticity and [Name Suppressed]’s convoluted contrarianism. They wanted to scowl at each other but just couldn’t. Gradually [Name Suppressed] began to notice the powerful masculine contractions Pipecock’s stocky body went into when the snares hit, and Pipecock couldn’t help but be charmed by the young Irishman’s slender frame swaying, eyes closed in rapture, during the breakdowns. In the churning confusion of the floor the brush of body against body gradually became something more lingering. As Omar closed out the set with the Ugly Edit of Jill Scott’s “Slowly, surely” the two suddenly stopped, frozen and face to face on the floor, neither quite daring to say what needed to be said.

***TO BE CONTINUED***

haha. part 2 plz.

Getting down on the D by Ugly Ed - PART 2

Pipecock/[Name Suppressed]

Disclaimer: This is a work of non-profit amateur fan fiction written just for fun. No infringement is meant on the rights of [Name Suppressed] Fitzqerald, Tom Cox, FXHE records, The Belleville Three or anybody else. No profit is being made by this story.

The music faded away and still the two stood there like two samurai locked in a battle of wills, except theirs was a battle of the love that dare not speak it’s name – the love of Europe for America and vice versa. Suddenly a voice echoed through the club.

“Is that? Is that? THE GHOST OF LARRY LEVAN????”

“Yes [Name Suppressed], it is I” said the ghost. “As you can see I have stopped the vinyl of time and everyone else in this club is frozen. Only the two of you can see me, and when I’ve finished talking and restarted the music of life, all will be as before and no-one will know of this save the two of you.”

“But, but…”

“QUIET PIPECOCK!” bellowed the ghost, “I am not some n00b that you can shout down with all caps. I am Larry Levan and I shall be heard. [Name Suppressed]! Smirk not! You are as guilty as he. Both of you have been gathered here for your sins against disco. You, Pipecock have strayed from the truth of your love for music by the desire for recognition and you seek to claim other people’s music for your own. This is not your place! Not only that but your love for Detroit has blinded you to the glories of other forms of music. Seek not to impose outside criteria on the groove, for the groove is just the groove and needs no other justification.”

Pipecock shuffled his feet and looked at the ground, chastened. This was Larry Levan! How could he argue?

“You, [Name Suppressed], have also strayed. You are too caught up in the creation of an ‘interesting’ viewpoint on music. You say things you don’t really mean and twist yourself up with thoughts of what your tastes say about you, instead of just feeling.”

“But most of all, both of you, you have not just sinned against music, you have sinned against love. Yes, L-O-V-E. You love each other, and want each other, but all the hate has blinded you to this. Let the scales drop from your eyes, and embrace one another. Then go home and make pumping man-love to the sounds of Donato Dozzy. This I command!”

***TO BE CONTINUED***

i actually properly LOLd while reading that.

titchy, did you know that one of the sa ra guys was dre's ghost producer for a long time? probably why dre's beats had dilla inspiration

i dunno, was he really dres ghostproducer? i think i read he had some other job, almost more admin-level at the label.

so what? i guess dilla's beats weren't touched by the wang of jesus himself?

the man wasn't a god?

fans are gay?

nothing makes people feel cool like clowning backpacker shit?

it's pretty stupid that dilla is getting shit on on ILM considering some of the corny shit that gets hyped on this board.

pretty much any beat with non-quantized hi-hats that slop around between straight and swung, or samples that veer out of time, reads as j dilla-influenced to me these days.

so what? i guess dilla's beats weren't touched by the wang of jesus himself?

the man wasn't a god?

fans are gay?

nothing makes people feel cool like clowning backpacker shit?

it's pretty stupid that dilla is getting shit on on ILM considering some of the corny shit that gets hyped on this board.

― brother marquis (M@tt He1ges0n), Tuesday, 17 March 2009 16:17 (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^^^ACTUAL best post on this thread

somebody link to the narcissism of small differences post from way back and lock thread already

i know what you mean and you're right for the most part, but there have been plenty of mainstream producers (Megahertz, later Neptunes) doing swinging unquantized drums that have nothing to do with Dilla.

the way people are overreacting to a the very mildly negative things being said about Dilla and/or his fans on this thread kinda makes a case for the fact that there is a cult of Dilla and it's not an entirely good thing.

i mean as far as i can tell noone has dared to suggest that the guy wasn't a unique talent or that he didn't make a lot of music worth enjoying and remembering him by.

right, a neptunes beat has never made me think of dilla (can you name any specific tunes btw?)

most of their stuff from like Justified onward has tended to be unquantized loops of Pharrell's live drumming instead of drum machines like before, it's more obvious on some tracks than others.

i'm not even a huge megafan, but he's good. listening to donuts now. this is a nice one to zone out to.

basically my post was directed at stuff like this:

why people are on his dick for the shitty Tribe albums, Labcabincalifornia, and the post-Paul De La albums is beyond me. Common? ugh fuck that guy

― One of the Most High Profile Comedy Directors of the 90s (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, March 16, 2009 10:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you forget that being mad at dead people is shakey's "thing"

haha waht

I'm mad at LIVING people, once their dead the gloating begins

they're

So can I ask an informed fan for a Rough Guide? (Haven't checked the RG threads, but I don't think any of them had one.)

(cue deej "zing" here)

yeah, that's a totally different thing to me. a) the fact that it's a loop means that it's going to line up every four or eight bars, as opposed to the dilla thing of doing a whole drum track "live", and anyway most of that neptunes drumming is pretty tight anyway, and b) however dilla did his beats (live on samplers or whatever), he created feels that are pretty hard to reproduce on a drum kit. i've never heard the neptunes do anything that sounds like that, and i feel like a lot of drummers are dealing with it now as a result of hearing dilla-style beats.

not sure how easily they would be to dig up, but i noticed a lot of music blogs did unofficial rough guides soon after he died.. can't be more specific than that tho

yeah loose unquantized drums done on a drum pad are a whole different thing i guess

xpost

man there was that one awesome free dilla mixtape that a website did...ethan linked to it, was great. can't recall where it was now.

was it the okayplayer thing w/m.o.p. and peedi crakk on top of beats from donuts?

didn't know he was ever locked up

yeah i heard that one, it was awesome

xpost

this: http://www.okayplayer.com/dilla/djsoul/

Bout to play basketball, will do a rough guide when I get back