Devin’s Reviews > Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm > Status Update

Still an incredible read, an indepth look at J Dilla's life, but god help you if you can't read music LOL. I keep having to just pull up songs that the author references to try and understand how the beats are in different time signatures. And also i am not 100% sure what a time signature is.

The entire second chapter on the brief history of Detroit as a result of colonialism, up to the rise of industry in modern times, with the interwoven lessons on musicology and how effortlessly Charnas ties all of this into J Dilla's life, is superb. I'd give 5 stars to this second chapter alone.

A neat and meticulous breakdown of rhythm and music theory, and how it was originally multicultural but was then beat into a singular universality by European and then american colonialism.

A side note: this breakdown is amazing but I cannot read or understand written music to save my life, lol. I imagine this would be even cooler if I could.