Sometimes there were tears. Not just from his friends, but from strangers, people who had never touched or met or even seen the man. One day, Burnside saw a middle-aged woman staring at the case, holding her purse, wiping her eyes. Thank you, she repeated. Thank you. The woman, overcome, put her face in her handkerchief, took a moment, and began to tell her story. The whole family, despite their age differences—herself, her ex-husband, her oldest son, her youngest son—all lived by J Dilla’s music. It was hard to explain.
