Breaking Down J Dilla Myths: Separating Fact from Fiction
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2022
- There is many myths surrounding the late Hip-Hop producer / beat maker J Dilla, in this video I'm revealing the truth behind three of these myths! My source for this video is J Dilla's biography and musicography "DILLA TIME" written by Dan Charnas, which came out earlier this year (2022).
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While he didn’t produce the original song, Dilla did produce the “Got Till Its Gone (Jaydee’s Revenge)” remix
Yup!
Fantastic video!! I have been scratching my head as to how Donuts could have possibly been made on a 303. It *has* to run through Vinyl Sim at some point, but there is no way it was chopped and sequenced with the capabilities of a 303.
You just earned a very happy subscriber. Thank you for sharing the knowledge!
Thank you! And thanks for the sub!
The thing about the Janet Jackson "Got It Til Its Gon" beat is that Dilla did pretty much ghost produce then song. He was leaned on heavily for it. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis not only took inspiration from Dilla. They used Dilla's production to create their own. It is not an accident that Q Tip was a part of UUMAH and on this song for Janet Jackson. To say that Dilla wasn't a part of the production is crazy. That is why Dilla made the revenge remix which is now ironically more popular than the original. Although NO ONE has really stated how this beat came about. My theory is that the base for the Got It Till Its Gone beat was already made by Dilla. Tip took this beat probably with Dilla's blessing to Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and they liked it and tweaked it just enough to make it their own. That is why Ummah and Dilla is not credited. But the original beat had Dilla all over it. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis did not make anything like that beat before or after.
th-cam.com/video/uIhJvYScvnE/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/users/shortspqQz29uS6Ng?feature=share
I agree with this. Plus Q-Tip is not someone to believe. He, himself did Pete Rock dirty on ATCQ's We Got The Jazz. Pete Rock made the beat and played it for Q-Tip at his house. Q-Tip then goes and remake the beat because he had the record the sample came from That is why on the record he says " Pete Rock for the beat you don't stop" very slimey !!!!. He was also known to take credit for beats Dilla did in the Ummah. He is not someone I would take seriously.
@@deebaker4671😂😂😂
Definitely recommend the audiobook for “Dilla Time”. Great narration
thats how "read" it !!!!
Very interesting, I had heard a lot about these myths, good to know more things ;)
J Dilla was one of, if not the greatest sampling beat maker of all time. However, the legends that have built up around him and the hero worship that grew after he passed is just crazy. And the fact that these myths have influenced music production is a little scary. No one should be deified like that. This is why Kanye thinks he's some otherworldly being. Its just not healthy. J Dilla was great, but so are a lot of other producers who are still living.
Dude I followed JayDee when he was alive and he was always a name for underground hip hop heads even when he died there wasn't a big buzz the buzz came literally over a decade and a half later with the rise of lofi study music and bedroom producers Dilla suddenly out of nowhere became like this messiah figure.
With all that said Dilla was amazing but while he was alive what made him stand out most simply was how hard his drums hit, it wasn't the groove or none of that it was he had a way of making his kicks hit harder then any producer in the game at the time.
@@Byronic19134 i will agree here and also add those snares were like cracking whips my guy!! Also, the types of samples he used. Who the hell ever heard of Gap Mangioni, "Diana in Autumn" before he used it?? I certainly haven't!
Yeah there are a ton of great producers still alive, and rocking… like Kanye! LoL
He died the same year I started making sample bassed Hiphop.
@@Byronic19134 I feel you & to add to what you said, TH-camrs years ago & now jumped on the Dilla bandwagon because he's good for the algo's & now here we are. Younger dudes think Dilla was the dude poppin' in the 90's. I like Dilla but in the 90's he wasn't in my top 10. Being in NYC there were soooo many dope beat-makers all with different styles J was just 1 of many.
It’s a great read! I just finished reading about his passing and the funeral this morning 😢.
Yes it is! That part of the book is very moving. RIP Dilla
thanks, great vid 👏
Good recap. Thanks for posting.
Thank you! 🙌
Very insightful, cant believe 2 and 3 are so widely accepted haha might ask for this book for christmas, thanks man✌
I know right! Everybody will turn ON quantize after this 😂
I’m still shaky about “Got ‘Til It’s Gone.” For all we know, Tip could’ve lied in order to keep his part of the NDA. I grew up on Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis production and I’m having a seriously hard time believing they just up and emulated Dilla’s style that accurately. Especially since I’ve never heard them depart from their style that drastically before or ever since. I’d believe they recreated what The Ummah had originally done before I believe they did that from scratch. I don’t think Dilla was lying about that and I don’t believe he was angry for nothing. The author not being able to find anyone to back Dilla’s claim isn’t proof of JJ and TL actually making that beat.
@Just Dancing Machine I forgot about that "Jay Dee's Revenge Remix." That's another reason why I believe Dilla had actually did the beat. Dude was humble enough to give other producers their props, so I can't see him lying about two dudes who were already R&B legends. Besides that, that was the era of big names sometimes using ghost producers at the time. Even The Neptunes did some ghost production for Teddy Riley back in the early to mid nineties before they finally were able to blow up. I believe that NDA story where they took the credit. That joint felt WAY too much like The Ummah at the time.
💯facts !
while he didn't create Donuts on his literal "deathbed", he certainly did in the figurative sense of the word, as his TTP illness brought him into comatose and near-death states prior to recording Donuts in 2005. Dilla Time was amazing, definitely worth a read.
Yes, in a figurative sense for sure. But it’s a better story for the media, so I get why it was told that way. ✌️
Great book. Some of the myths and stories made up about Dilla, like him making a whole album in the hospital, when he was in and out of the hospital are just idiotic. He was extremely sick regardless, so dramatizing it even further is idiotic.
I read the book as well and it was dope. 💪🏾
Nice 👍🏽 I havent read the book yet and this was enlightening... cheers
Thank you for watching! 🙌
@@ambrushadam No worries.... Come have a peek at our channel, I think you may enjoy some of the stuff we got going on over there 👍🏽
@@tarbooshrecords8530 I’ll check out your channel!
@@ambrushadam Big ups 👍🏽We get silly over there haha
Correction* dilla made donuts on the 3000 with pro tools
He might have, I retold what is in the book 😊
Give me a source.
You got that wrong, my guy. Dilla was in California when he made Donuts. He mostly, or entirely, use the 303 that Madlib put him up on. Then, after he got sick, the Stones Throw engineers put the beats in Pro Tools and did some clever editing because a lot of the beats were like 20-30 seconds.
This has not been secret; this has been documented and retold for the past 15 plus years in many different places. The real fans of a Dilla-the ones who revered him when he was alive and making music-already know a lot of what is real vs myth.
Unfortunately, Dilla-like DOOM-has acquired a lot of fans who have started to follow him because the internet told them too, and they have misunderstood and confused a lot of information.
Also, he can be seen in videos playing drum pads live. He absolutely used the quantize on the MPC (he started on the MPC 2000 and also used a 60. He didn’t use the 3000 until later into the mid 90’s), but you can hear some of his beats reflect live playing. There were beats early in his career, like “Still Shining” off of Busta’s first record, that reflect live playing because of the constant pattern changes-not sure how you would program that on an MPC, and that was before Pro Tools was ubiquitous. Of course, I don’t know for sure how it was done.
There are videos on him playing live drums on TH-cam, btw.
3000 came out before 2000
I never said he wasn’t in california, he had a home there (he stayed at Commons house according the book) - where he made Donuts.
In this video I’m referencing Dilla Time, I trust Dan Charnas did his research. He talked to everybody that was around Dilla back then, they say Dilla made Donuts in Pro Tools and yes Jeff Jank made edits to the tracks in Donuts to make them longer, pretty much finished it up (again from the book).
I think Dilla programmed his drums by playing the pads and then afterwards edited the midi notes to get the groove the way he wanted.
Nah bro I had to stop when you said he used the 2k lol unless you talking about Doom??
@@spell316 You can find interviews where Dilla talks about his hardware progression. He also used an SP-12. I could be wrong about the 2000 before the 3000. Amp Fiddler put him on the MPC, so it depends what he had. Maybe it was just the 60. Dilla definitely had a 2000 because there’s a story about him giving one to Frank Nitty or Phat Kat in one of the TH-cam docs.
Tipp denied it cuz JD was dead. Tipp was concerned and thinkin bout that bread. It's not possible for you to do what he did on that. He mixed it on Pro Tools from his bed.
If anyone is curious about "Got ’til It’s Gone", check out Jimmy Jam's Questlove Supreme interview, he talks about making it.
If they did make it , they damn sure was copying Dilla's style. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis don't make music like that. There are many thieves in the music industry that steal other producers ideas, Like Q-Tip for one !!!
I think he used the 303 sparingly, and also lots of beat remakes online showing how those beats couldve been made on the 303. Also Madlib was high on the 303 during Madvilliany (despite majority of beats on the SP1200)
I think Dilla used PT for tracking and recording. Maybe time stretching or mixing his samples down before he recs them on his MPC thru his ADAT (which he used to record vocals at his studio)
Dilla Time is a fantastic book as well!
I feel like I've heard actual collaborators of Dilla say they saw him nail the weird swing of his parts, just turning off quantize is one of the main ways people get off-feel (At least with short repeated loops, 4 bars max or you'll probably get the feel wrong if you're not amazing)
He also did play drums, nothing crazy, but he did
Yeah him playing the drums makes a lot of sense since there is a photo or 2 of him playing drums.
There is also video footage of Dilla playing drums in a studio. Recording on one of Common's albums.
@@deebaker4671 Like he said himself, there's no one formula! Being open to different approaches means you'll get more kinds of great results. He went through phases where it all seemed to be sampling, but even then he did it in so many ways.
@@Gnurklesquimp 💯Facts !!!
Cool!
But it sounds so weird to hear young Boys saying "Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam"... :-)
They used to be quoted like Jimmy "Jam" & Terry Lewis...
Didn't know that! Not sure I'm a young boy anymore though ;)
@@ambrushadam Oh, that's so easy... I'm 55. :-))
beat heads hunting down 2005 MacBooks! lol. meanwhile 303's in the dollar bins. 😂
😂
😂
😂
Dawg 303s are going for like $500 rn wym 💀
Great book
🙌
U can remake stuff off of donuts on the 303 and 505 which I own using the resampling
There is probably a few things on Donuts that can be done on the 303, but the timestreching that he uses on some tracks is not even possible on the MPC 3000 and definitely not on the 505 or 303.
@@ambrushadam u can timestretch in a daw the record that sample in a sampler like the mpc 3000 and 303 what gave it up for me that he possibly could have used the 303 was hearing what sounds like the vinyl sim in a few songs and songs like welcome to the show has a different sample rate than 441khz which u can't change in protools one of his friends said he clean and record beats up in protools but I never heard anything about him making beats in protools but it's possible
@@jamesjr2550 yeah you can definitely do that, the pro tools story is what is in the book, if I remember correctly Dilla was gifted a 303 during his last stay at the hospital before he died - after he already made all the beats for Donuts. Peanut Butter Wolf also talks about the creation of Dontus on the 33 1/3 podcast if you haven’t checked that out open.spotify.com/episode/55Fd7wFIFaxITQjDVqoHum?si=oVK-6-yPQXioN1cYuHLDlA
@@ambrushadam yeah they said madlib gave him a 303 while in the hospital
@@ambrushadamthis was his crate diggers th-cam.com/video/XL3ENrZwjmw/w-d-xo.html
Some people would consider “Runnin”, “Drop” and “Bullshit” to already feature Dilla’s signature sound. The book confirms these were all made on the SP1200, before Dilla had the MPC3000. You don’t need to use the swing on the SP1200 to get the Dilla feel. The SP1200 only has a resolution of 24 ticks per quarter note, so just playing a bass drum in without quantise, and missing the beat very slightly, means the SP1200 will move it onto a click where it swings. Dilla discovered his feel that way, then replicated it on the MPC3000, which has a much higher resolution of 94 clicks per quarter note. So you have to mess around moving drums slighly and applying swing here and there to get the feel the SP1200 gives naturally. That is why the sp1200 still sells for over $5,000, even though it only has 10 seconds of sampling time.
I can play the drums of mostly any genre while finger drumming live no quantize and many more like myself out there so Idk how it would be impossible maybe Dilla didn't do it live but I know tons of people who can and do make everything unquantized
It’s not impossible to play fingerdrums in time without quantize, but can you play the snare 3 milliseconds (or something like that) early every time consistently? While also have a kick drum shift between late and early, plus playing the hihats straight. If you read the analysis in the book you will definitely question it. I know fingerdrummers and bands have made the offbeat thing into their style (questlove etc), so approaching it is possible.
@@ambrushadam I agree that some of the dilla techniques weren't human. He Used note repeat just saying its definitely possible to finger drum n still come with quality drum patterns.
@@grayhudsonn for sure!
@@ambrushadam it wasn’t consistent. he probably made a drum loop and extended it and layered the chops on it…not played the whole thing thru
I gotta bust a myth from this video; you can absolutely produce a project like Donuts on a 303 - Donuts was primary loops pitched up or down with drop samples and essentially no drum programming, so this would be ideal for a machine like the 303. There was nothing complex about Donuts....for proof there's dozens of videos of producers recreating elements of Donuts on the 303 - 202 etc.
HE HAD INSANE REACTION TIME ... now I'm gettin mad... You need to donate to The James Dewitt Yancy foundation ASAP in my name if you'd like. It's the right thing to do for the culture.
Did Dilla produce the till it's gone remix?
Yes I think so
I read the book not that long ago and really enjoyed it though I thought it said Dilla made Donuts at an extended hospital stay in the summer of 2005? Months before his death
No pretty sure the book said, as I say in the video; he made the beats for donuts after he got discharged from the hospital in early 2005 - and I did double check with the book before filming 😉 so it was between hospital stays.
Thanks. I remember there was someone who also said he didn't make the beats in the hospital, but he did edit some of it in the hospital . Idunno 🤷♂️
Ooooh imma get this for my birthday
I can’t recommend it enough!
@@ambrushadam another myth i thought u were gonaa debunk was that Life was produced by someone else , i recently saw someone say it was remake. but besides that , check me out brotha , i been on some offbeat shit lately , its fun to experiment with lol
@@djtrakakadrunkpoet8598 I didn’t know there was any controversy about Life, as far as I can remember its not mentioned in Dilla Time. Yeah its fun to mess around with different rhymths!
@@djtrakakadrunkpoet8598 think life was still produced by him, just the instrumental one up on TH-cam is an old remake posted by someone like 12 years ago or something
@@p.ii.5104 ooooh ok that makes sense .
I always knew he didn’t turn off the quantise. That was a ridiculous myth
I turn it off it’s not a myth
@@Martydoessykes we are talking about dilla. Plus quantise is cool IF YOU KNOW HOW TO USE IT which most people don’t!
@@Martydoessykes heard your joints though. You have some FIRE right there!
I can't say whether he did or not. I can say that I quantize after playing the beat. I am not sure if this what you are referring to as turning it off. I do use quantize, but often don't use auto quantize. I just play to the click and then afterwards quantize as needed.
I think he quantize the snare sometimes but look at the running beat and check the kicks he definitely played those in
J Dilla and Madlib are easily some of my biggest influences. Your favourite producer's favourite producer. He was insane.
Thank you for this video.
*Edit: He died at his Los Angeles home after making his last beat at home. He didn't die in a hospital as stated in the video.
I have it but I haven’t read it 😂
Things that make you go mmmm
4 mnts video to say dilla used swing on his beats.. youtube use to be informative
Yeah, what happened to youtube? 🤷♂️
(Not having read the book) The chances Dilla used ProTools *instead* of the SP-303 are slim. It would be *normal* for someone to start work on a 303 then fly it into a PT to finish, lay vocals, scratches, mix, edit etc.
I don’t know what state he was in while in the hospital. But I it would be hard to imagine that he did not have a portable sampler and a portable record player as said.
Did he complete the entire master, probably not. Did he work on it, probably.
@@AlexanderDivineEmcee sure. The point is, it’s not possible to use ONLY a 303 ever. At some point it has to be put to ‘tape’. So just because he had a laptop, doesn’t mean he did not do “all” of the production on a Sp-303.
When I heard the story about working with a 303 in the hospital and then heard the album, it made sense.
eh
@@AlexanderDivineEmcee fact?
This is not correct?
During an extended hospital stay last summer, Dilla’s friends from the L.A.-based indie label Stones Throw came to his aid. “They brought him a little Boss [SP] 303 sampler and little 45 record player,” says his close friend and fellow producer Karriem Riggins. “That’s what brought him through to make a lot of music that we hear on Donuts.”
In fact, Dilla completed 29 of the 31 songs on the aforementioned Donuts instrumental LP, his latest masterful release, while still in the hospital. The album was released through Stones Throw on Dilla’s 32nd birthday-only three days before he passed away.
@@AlexanderDivineEmcee no disrespect taken.
My objection was to the idea that he used a laptop instead of a 303. Wherever it was done/finished.
Otherwise it really doesn’t mater that much to me, I haven’t read these articles before. Is what it is.
@@AlexanderDivineEmcee thats what they say.... either way, the account in this video 'he made Donuts in ProTools, not the 303, because you cant do with the 303 whats done on the album'
Actually there are things on the album that sound like the 303 in particular, he would have been trying to get PT to sound like an SP-303.
anyway, know one may actually know for certain at this point, he may have been moving tracks, and samples between various pieces of equipment - and people saw whatever they seen and when.
Again, no one thinks (or should) that he or anyone (well there are some) creates an entire album with +just+ a 303.
peace
i'm willing to bet he used logic or ableton for donuts. back then every DAW was called "pro tools" by people who didn't know about them. kinda like how kleenex is a blanket term for tissue
I’m not so sure about that. You can do complex timestreching in pro tools. And some of the people that was interviewed for the book was gearheads (djs and producers) so they would know.
I will bet it was in fact protools since he had a protools rig in his home studio, you see the board in the photos.
@@ambrushadam that makes sense then. i've just never heard of someone using pro tools to make beats, only mix them, so i thought it might have been something else. as an sp 303 user, you can do everything except the time stretching on the 303, but some of the stuff on donuts is nearly impossible to to on the fly so i always knew he had to have used something else haha i can only imagine what he would've done with today's DAWs and plugins.
@@lukeisprvkt yeah i guess i was wrong, i just never heard of pro tools being used for the beat making process, just the tracking out/mixing stage.
@@lukeisprvkt according to friend who helped build the studio with j he said j had alot of stuff in his studi he didn't use he only use a compressor I forgot the name but he use that and record to pro tools
Chin Beats is the closest thing to J Dilla
J Dee wasn't this so called musical genius who knew magic as some may believe. J was a lucky kid who had the support of his mom. He never really had to work. His mom owned the house they lived in. He didn't really have any bills so he had a lot of time on his hands which made him able to master every screen inside that MPC. He knew his machine and was around great people who taught him little tips and tricks. Many of us don't have that luxury. He only had one machine and he learned to master it, that's all.
Luck favours the BRAVE.
That doesn’t take away from his talent, innovation, humble demeanor, or influence.
It sounds like you have a lot of resentment for someone who positively impacted people like Kanye West, Pharrell and music at large
+ has been dead for almost twenty Years!
@@jackxavier3915 No. When you master an MPC you'll see what i'm talking about. Yes, I'm on this page because i respect him. But we are on this page for 2 totally different reason's.
Sounds like an excuse for envy 😂
@@windwaker01 DUDE, this is why certain business/enterprises fail because there is always detractors trying to gatekeep the culture without appreciating other people's contributions 😂😂
Classic pocketwatching 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂