J Dilla and Pete Rock
(Nature Sounds)
It's a depressing state of pop culture affairs when a musician receives more attention after they've died than they did during their lifetime (see: the hundreds of millions of dollars the estates of Elvis, Kurt Cobain and Tupac have made since their deaths), but for fans of J Dilla, the rapper, producer and DJ who helped shape the current culture of hip-hop before his death in 2006, at least the music hasn't stopped.
With Jay Stay Paid - and Dillanthology, Volume 1, released in April on Rapster - J Dilla's legacy lives on through collections of classic works and unreleased tracks and snippets of material he was working on before his death. With the 11-track Dillanthology, devoted Dilla fans can revisit some of the work that made him famous - such as the slow and soulful "Didn't Cha Know" by Erykah Badu, a fellow former member of the hip-hop collective The Soulquarians, and the fiercely critical "Stakes is High" by De La Soul - and can glimpse into what the future could have held with Jay Stay Paid, which features 28 unreleased tracks (most two minutes or shorter; only a few are full songs) collected, mixed and arranged by legendary producer Pete Rock.
Yet while both albums could serve as an intro to J Dilla's importance and influence for the casual rap listener, it's probably hip-hop-heads who would benefit most from Jay Stay Paid and the treasures it presents - the multi-layered, complex synths of "King," the club-ready quality of "caDILLAc" or the retro funk of "10,000 Watts."
The flashes of genius - most impressive on "Reality Check," a song featuring The Roots' Black Thought (in which he references more than 20 reality shows in his frustrated analysis of American television habits, with lyrics such as, "I'm going at it with my baby mother where I live/ While all the soldiers bleed, the economy recede/ And all she wanna watch is reality TV") - are obvious and often, but also infuriating. It makes sense that most of the tracks on the album are only snippets because J Dilla didn't have the chance to complete them, but it's frustrating to hear a minute or two and then be met with an abrupt end.
But alas - such is Jay Stay Paid, such is life.
Standout Tracks: "Reality Check," "King," "Fire Wood Drumstix," "Coming Back" ROXANA HADADI
