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

by Dan Charnas

clean of any vocal. It became the bed of a song for Mos Def and Talib Kweli. Kanye West didn’t care about open spaces. He sampled anything—vocals, no vocals, it didn’t matter. He took dusty old soul records, like Lenny Williams’s “Cause I Love You,” jacked up the speed, chopped the music and vocal alike, and made a new track for the Chicago rapper Twista, “Overnight Celebrity.” It was a technique presaged, just as the conflicts of Dilla Time were, by the insouciant sampling habits of Wu-Tang Clan producer the RZA. But Kanye was more deliberate and consistent in his use of vocal bits, creating an aesthetic that was part hip-hop, part the Chipmunks. Madlib, too, was creative progeny to the RZA, but with an even more profound lean into error. As such, Madlib and J Dilla were producers of the same heart.