J-Dilla

February 7, 1974 – February 10, 2006

After his untimely death from lupus-related complications in 2006, just after his 32nd birthday, J Dilla became recognized as one of the most important producers in hip-hop history. Born James Dewitt Yancey to an opera singer and a jazz bassist, the Detroit native started rapping and beat-making as a kid, forming the rap trio Slum Village with his high school friends, and eventually working with the likes of A Tribe Called Quest, the Roots, and Erykah Badu. With his meticulous knowledge of records and wily command over drum machines, he created intricate, sample-based productions that defied the rigid structure of the grid and altered how musicians of all stripes thought of time. “What Dilla created was a third path of rhythm,” writes journalist, record executive, and professor Dan Charnas in his upcoming biography of the artist, resulting in a “new, pleasurable, disorienting rhythmic friction and a new time-feel: Dilla Time.”