Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm

by Dan Charnas

Syncopation was the ghost of polyrhythm, the spirit of Africa still following its progeny through time and space, through slavery to emancipation and beyond.

Funk was a rhythmic system of tension and release over time, but also simultaneous tension between some players exercising maximum restraint and others exhibiting maximum expressiveness.

The drums weren’t the only instrument to play with rhythmic expectation, because in funk, every instrument was used as a drum, especially the bass guitar, which also began to take on the melodic work. Funk made the bass line prime.

That time-feel cannot be understood as either straight or swung time. It is not the median or midpoint or gradation between the two. It is the deliberate juxtaposition of multiple expressions of straight and swing time simultaneously, a conscious cultivation of rhythmic friction for maximum musicality and maximum surprise. It is conflicted time. It is Dilla Time.

J Dilla is likened to a musical Luke Skywalker who turns off his targeting computer in order to blow up the Death Star.

Jeff’s discovery led to a deeper realization: everyone in hip-hop had heretofore been trying to cut, splice, and jam samples to accommodate the machine’s time grid, because producers were focused on mining samples for their sounds. But Jay Dee did the opposite: he bent the machine grid to accommodate his sample sources, because he was focused on using those samples for their rhythmic and harmonic feel.