J Dilla/ Jay Dee Mythology

A popular clothing company has hatched together some thoughtful interviews from a handful of operators that worked with or became aware of the growing body of work of Jay Dee's later J Dilla.  The mythology surrounding the man born James Yancey is so substantial post-mortem it's helpful to get a relative chronological run through of his career and the level of regional and international awareness around him in respective creative periods.  This particular documentary scans over his emergence as a producer of beat tapes and then member of Slum Village with the release of their album Fan-Tas-Tic (Vol. 1).

Where it particularly succeeds is in the thoughtful if at times ponderous (with for instance Stones Throw label founder Peanut Butter Wolf) reflections on how players first encountered Jay Dee's material and how the mythology grew rightly around him.  But that mythology didn't spring fully formed and armoured like Athena from the mind of Zeus- it built gradually and then with his death precipitously.  In the oral culture of hip hop fandom various accounts of Dilla's career are told and the nuances lean towards the story teller's vantage.  The 'truth' seems to be that in reality Dilla's frisson of greatness was vaguely and fairly narrowly felt by other hip hop producers and performers in his earliest incarnation as a producer. This particular documentary focuses, and sheds broad light,  in its second part on the nature of his (late-life of a young man) creative partnership with Madlib which would result in their mutual landmark Champion of Sound.  Likewise it places well his transit on the well travelled musical highway from Detroit to Los Angeles and his reception in the underground scene there. 

This particular doc, perhaps owing to the sponsor and also reasons of artisitic license, leaves aside for others the height of his mid-90's popularity as a producer qua producer for artists including: Pharcyde, Tribe Called Quest, Busta Rhymes, Janet Jackson and De La Soul.  There is scant if any mention of his solo album Welcome 2 Detroit, and Ruff Draft is equally skated past.  Nor is his so-called championing or definitive 'neo-soul revival' sound, and perhaps fairly so as these are critical terms that suit writers rather than listeners after the fact.  For these considered oversights the weary tale lands heavily in it's third part on Yancey's dogged work, even while in the hospital wrapped in his failing mortal coil where he withered from complications of lupus and a blood disorder thrombocystosis, and completion of Donuts (which Peanut Butter Wolf attributed to a stream of beat tapes with junk food titles like Pizzaman).  Thoughtful commentary from DJ Houseshoes, Frank Nitty and in particular Donuts engineer Dave Cooley illuminates the central pillars of his mythology being genius, prodigious output, emotional depth and technical audacity.  In the truest sense of cyphers and illuminati implication is cast clearly that Yancey new Donuts would be his gravemarker in the century of sound.  Etched into its surfaces references both lyrical and in the original source material to Death's shuffling stride.   The sound a ride cymbal makes well after it's been struck.