Dilla Time

2. Notably, one of the producers who regularly employed Shift Timing on the MPC was none other than Alex Richbourg, during his days with the Trackmasters. He also used it on “Got ’Til It’s Gone,” giving the drum track a leaning, rolling quality. Crucially, the usage of Shift Timing on this track seems to predate any use of that feature by Jay Dee. So one might envision a scenario in which Jay Dee’s “revenge” merited not just a remix, but a wholesale commandeering of this feature, albeit with a more advanced technique.

3. That, for example, is how the acclaimed drummer Nate Smith sometimes “counts” his rushed snare and kick, placing them one septuplet ahead of the pulse, counting each beat quickly as onetwothreefourfivesixseven, onetwothreefourfivesixseven, onetwothreefourfivesixseven, onetwothreefourfivesixseven. Smith, who also came up as a beatmaker, says the technique grew out of his approximation of MPC swing. He sometimes counts his “rushedness” a different way, shooting to land his snare or kick somewhere in the “tiny gulf” between the last eighth-note triplet of a beat and the downbeat or backbeat that follows.

 

9. Partners

1. Other nineties soul acts like Brand New Heavies, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Maxwell are sometimes included under the “neo-soul” umbrella for their blend of progressive and retro sensibilities, traditional and electronic music-making.

2. This song would not surface on a D’Angelo album until 2014.

3. D’Angelo says that he still holds out hope that James’s version of “The Root” exists somewhere.

4. D’Angelo says that the first track, in which he plays a real Mellotron, is lost; the second one, which appeared on Jay Dee’s “Another Batch” beat tape from 1998, is sometimes called “Marvine.”

5. Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, born January 20, 1971, is on the cusp between this zodiac sign and the previous one, Capricorn—making him, appropriately, a “rushed” Aquarius.

6. Years later, Nissel would turn those talents toward a career in comedy writing for television shows like Scrubs and Mixed-ish.

7. The drums in this record were spliced from the Detroit Emeralds’ “You’re Getting a Little Too Smart.”

8. It is worth noting that the lack of credit for influence and ideas happened a few times on James’s end as well—as when T3 and Proof found samples that ended up in James’s production for the Pharcyde, and also when D’Angelo and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson helped write the music for Slum Village’s “Tell Me.”

9. There is a story that Joylette relays about this particular issue, a conversation that is pivotal for her but one that Maureen Yancey says never happened. In Joy’s recollection, during a visit from James’s parents, she, James, and Maureen were talking in the kitchen. Joy says that Maureen was encouraging James to keep his studio at the house on Nevada, while she was insistent on relocating his studio to the new house—a key point for her given James’s infidelity. According to Joy, after Maureen kept talking about it, James said, exasperated: “MAUREEN!” Joy says it was the first time that she had seen James back his mother off. It is a fact that James moved his studio to the house in Huntington Woods, but Maureen says that it is only because James could not get the owner of the house on McDougall and Nevada to sell it to him at a reasonable price. James understood, Maureen says, the energetic significance of the place. Frank Bush says that, as far as he knew, “it was always the plan” to move the studio to Huntington Woods.

10. Matt Kahane would move on from Good Vibe to become an artist and Grammy Award–winning producer. He is now known professionally as Jack Splash.

10. Pay Jay

1. “‘Shake It Down’ was done by mistake,” James wrote of the song. “Check it. I had a beat block for a minute. I told myself, ‘Get yo’ ass in the basement and make some shit, if you don’t, somebody will!’ No lie, I looped the first thing the needle touched, some HAPPY-ASS FOLK SONG SHIT (just my luck). Trying to be funny, I filtered the loop.” James was saying that he took the high frequencies out to squelch the vocals and boost the music underneath. “After passing a few blunts,” he continued, “I thought of some rhymes to it so I finished it. Enjoy. Oh yeah. Beatheads, the loop unfilters at the end. What is it?” It was a 1971 song by Boz Scaggs called “Nothing Will Take Your Place.”

2. Peter Adarkwah says that James told him that the moniker “J Dilla” came from Busta Rhymes. Frank Bush and Karriem Riggins confirm that the name came from Common.

3. James and crew also stopped by the hip-hop DJ Tim Westwood’s BBC radio show, somewhat less revelatory on the music side and more about James and his crew’s porn film preferences.

4. Hi-Tek, who met James at Electric Lady and was friendly with him, states that the track’s elements were as much an homage to Pete Rock and Q-Tip as they were to Jay Dee, the off-the-grid shaker being the most explicit nod to the Detroit producer.