The bric-a-brac of clipped strings and looped backing vocals are deftly stitched together: a triumph of Dilla’s attention to detail. Though Dilla’s posthumous discography is fast catching up on the material he released during his lifetime, latter-day productions such as “History,” tucked away towards the end of Mos Def’s last album (to date), assuage any fears of barrel-scraping. Mos Def (featuring Talib Kweli): History (2009, The Ecstatic) It’s fitting that both Common and D’Angelo appear on the track: both artists inspired the producer to provide high points in his career, and here they put in trademark performances that more than do justice to the retro-futurist soul of J Dilla’s beat. Originally recorded for a special edition of Common’s 2005 outing, Be, “So Far To Go” first surfaced on Dilla’s first posthumous album, The Shining. Indeed, as recently as 2014, long-term Dilla cohorts De La Soul released their Smell The DAISY mixtape, featuring unheard beats put together by the late production mastermind.Ĭlick to load video J Dilla (featuring Common and D’Angelo): So Far To Go (from The Shining, 2007) His downtempo, soulful style was not only the perfect bedding for these “conscious” hip-hop artists, but also for D’Angelo’s sultry come-ons.ĭilla left an overwhelming amount of material behind, fuelling seemingly endless posthumous releases while ensuring that his collaborators could continue to honor the man long after his death. Mind-bendingly versatile, he left his fingerprints on high-water marks by everyone from Native Tongues icons De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, to The Roots, Common, and Erykah Badu. Just 32 when he died, from a rare blood disease known as thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, Dilla had been the unsung hero of hip-hop production ever since he began racking up credits in 1993. His death, on February 10, 2006, robbed the world of a talent it was only just beginning to comprehend. J Dilla is responsible for some of the best beats to ever come out of hip-hop.
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