Music Dude presents: Dilla and this list thing

As many of you know, 2006 is the year that I make my second attempt to gradually wean myself from hiphop and, what I feel to be, its corrosive influence on my psyche and morality. It's a bit of a long story that deserves its own novel-blog.

But as this process takes place, I find myself thinking about the music a lot. Sort of like how one might obsessively daydream or ponder the full-scope of a relationship with a significant other if that person sees the end of that affair drawing close. The tendency might be to analyze the minutia, glamourize the mudane, but at other times it might spur you try attempt to wrap your arms around some weighty subjects, come to conclusions.

I'm doing that with hiphop a lot more, these days. In January, as I spent another evening without much to do, I managed to spend close to two hours coming to the conclusion that Ice Cube's place in the hop, somehow (almost inexplicably), was a near mirror image to Dextor Gordon's place in jazz. It had more to do with geography and exit-returns, but it was making sense to me.

A couple weeks ago, though. My attention turned to producers.

I had recently started goin back and doin my studies on some Gangstar. I happened upon a burned copy of The Owners and fell back in love Primo again, but more on him later. Anyways, I started thinking real, real hard about whether or not Primo was indeed the greatest hiphop producer of all-time -- I just couldn't come to a conclusion. The next day, it was back on my mind as I played certain tracts over and over again on my way to Orlando. Then I popped the CD out and turned on the radio. These were the three songs that came on, in a row:

Excuse Me Miss -- Jay-Z
Put You on the Game -- The Game
some new joint by LL. The chorus is something like "U got it, u got it, u got it...It's hard to control myself.

The three producers of those tracks were

Excuse Me Miss -- Pharrell Williams
Put You On The Game -- Timbaland
that LL joint -- Jermaine Dupri.

The LL joint slayed me. It was 70s disco and 00s club mixed into one. And u could tell by the way L was spittin the chorus that JD wrote it. And I started thinkin to myself, is JD one of the greatest producers in hophop history.

He's done tracks for Jay-Z, Biggie, LL -- u name it. He created Da Brat and Kriss Kross and Bow Wow. Think about that, though. JD created those acts. When I say, "created", I mean he made their beats, wrote their lyrics, dressed them, marketed them -- the whole nine. And then I started thinkin about that Timbo track for the Game and it was like, "Yo, we may not considers these niggas the true-blue, underground, gangsta, sho-nuff hiphop producers, but looking back at their longevity, commercial success, their weight in the studios and their abilities to create hits and craft their sounds...they gotta, at least be in the discussion."

Then days later, my nigga Dilla died. And on that day I wondered aloud, to myself, whether he might be the greatest. Sounds odd, but I gave that serious thought. Death does that.

See, true producing is more than just creating a beat on the TR808 or MPC or whatever and then calling it quits. The great producers are in that studio and actually reign over the song. It's their beat, their idea -- the great hiphop producers more closely resemble Quincy Jones or Burt Bacharach than they do, say, 9th Wonder. That's no slap at 9th, but he's not even in my discussion.

The same way "rapper" (if we've all grown up and have enough courage and conviction to call it like it is and not get bogged down or fooled into using that term to describe the Will Smiths of the world) encompasses the emcee and lyricist sides and denotes someone who can perform and create good songs -- a producer is more than just an ill beat maker. If you'll indulge me a bit more on this difference -- an ill beat maker is like a great movie writer. But an ill producer not only writes the film, but acts as the director as well. I imagine the great producers sitting in front of the control board in the studio, directing everything from when to break the music, to suggesting tonal inflctions an emcee should use in the hook. U dig?

So basing things on that criteria, I wondered -- who are the Seven Greatest HipHop Producers of the modern era (1993-now). Here, by the way, is my explanation for why I chose seven, instead of five or 10.

As you know, this will be The Definitive List, because it's the Music Dude's list. It will be biblical. More so than the lyrics, the music is my thing. It's why I love the hop. Treat this as fact, not opinion.

But...before we get to the actual list, we gotta pay respect to one of the illest that ever did it, my nigga Dilla, yall. Jay Dee.

I'll never forget when I was kickin it wit my nigga Dwayne (sp?) from the D and he told me that niggas from Detroit get mo down with D-12 than they do the Slum. That just blew my effin mind. How could a city full of jitterbig niggas claim allegiance to some dorks with a white-boy leader when my favorite group of the past 10 years is reppin that city harder than Tommy Hearns? I just kept askin him two word questions, like "Are you serious?"..maybe that was three.

Although my Slum fanaticism is still strong as ever, even though Dilla broke off after Vol. 2 (despite producing a couple songs/per album), I got attached to them in 2000. I had just moved to DC. I was broke, living a spartan lifestyle and I used to entertain myself at night by laying on my futon, in the dark and puttin Jealosy, Climax, Forth and Back, Players and all those other trax on repeat. As emcees, T3, Baatin and Dilla weren't Nas. But they all were emcees (mic control, move the crowd, master of ceremonies). They all had style and swagger on the mic. But I was most consumed with what was going on underneath the lyrics.

It takes me much longer than most to memorize lyrics, because my first 5-10 listens are always dominated by the music. And that first Slum was a mutha. I don't what JD was on. But, unlike most producers, he was able to creat moods with his music. I mean, someone please check that bassline on Jealosy, with the sparse paino chords. The bassline sounds like some Miroslauv Vitois ish, something Stanley Clarke wouldve licked when he was doin his upright dance. Now, Dilla wasn;t actually playin the bass, but he knew how, he was actually musician (come to find out) and there's no doubt that knowledge of musicianship allowed hi to freak that bassline the way he did. It's like the bass was comin at u in waves, it was perpetual...so he balanced that with sparse piano and hesitant snare kicks. I used to sit there on my futon, drinkin E&J marveling at how he did his thing.

But lets rewind -- its a bit of a technicality on when I truly got put onto Dilla. My first knowing awareness of Dilla was Let's Ride of Q-Tips Amplified album. Tip dropped that single after Vivrant Thing and Move and Stop, which happened to be bangers in their own right, but they were divergent sounds for a dude that was the lead man for Tribe. Let's Ride sort of walked back to that neighborhood a little bit. Let's talk about the guitar on the track. It was like some Geroge Benson "White Rabbit." In fact, it could have been where he got it, but you never knew. The great producers can chop up a sample so intricately and well-crafted, that the essence remains, but the sound is fresh. It's really a basis for an argument that asserts that hop producers are in fact musicians and their MPCs and such are their instruments.

Anyways, Let's Ride was one of those tracks that created a mood for me. It dropped in the Fall and it had a euro-feel to it, like it was extracted from something that might play in the background as you sat at a sidewalk bistro in Paris somehwere and sipped some coffee in Fall. It was relaxed, but it had an energy to it too. ya naa mean?

My sister had bought the Amplified, too. So I stole it from her when I visited her in NYC that winter and did some knowledge on the liner notes and I keep seeing this Jay Dee name come up for all these impeccable tracks. A couple months later, that same name shows up on, like, 10 of Common's tracks off Like Water. And then a couple months after that, Dilla and Slum drop Fantastic. Which mean that in the span of 6-9 months, Dilla's name was attached to production credits of about 60 songs.

In my opinion, Dilla's Summer 99-Summer 00 is the Greatest Year of Production for any hop producer, surpassing Primo's 1994-95 when he produced Hard To Earn, Sun Rises and Livin Proof.

That's sayin a whole lot there. But think about that -- those three albums Dilla produced in that span are remarkable. But lets rewind a bit more. Back in 1995, when Primo was wrappin up his landmark string of production -- Dilla was actually intoduced to us.

Do this knowledge.

I had absolutely no idea that he made those beats on that album. "Runnin"? That track was so ill. That was long before Timbo tried to freak some latin into Ryde or Die track he did for the Lox, which I thought was fly and very Timbo-like. And he did "Drop", too, which was a foreshadowing of how Dilla could get on his space cadet missions, such as "Lightworks", which is my favorite cut off the Donuts album. I like how Dilla took a sound that gave us a similar fill to the water-torture effect Primo laid on "Come Clean", but hollowed it, played with the pitch and made it part of a composite that sounded like some sapce age video game.

The whole concept of Donuts was so ill to me, because Dilla basically set out on a mission to make songs without a lyricist or a singer -- or at least thats the way it seems to me. Some newbees might hear a lot of what Dilla did on the album and ignorantly claim he was bitin Kanye, when really what they mean was he's bitin Rza. But, I disagree. I don't think Dilla dropped that album, like "Here, check these beats. It's some new ish I'm on." I think homeboy tried to make an album, not just a collection of beats. He didn't want it to be an instrumental tape. He wanted it to have the feeling of an album. So he dug in the crates and found singers and rappers that he used, by cutting up their lyrics, to essentially make actual songs. Do some knowledge on a lot of those cuts -- they have actual verses and hooks. It was genius.

I'm gonna reserve an analysis on how he changed music, how he created a new sound, how he's made Detroit one of the four or five most thriving music cities at the moment and all that for the list.

Until then, I'll say this...

Me and my niggas and my fam...we don't cry much. But music has that effect. I remember my lil sis P saying that she shed some tears at a Bilal concert in NYC. Not becuase he was talkin about broken hearts or tugging at heart strings, but because of the vibe he had created on stage with his band. Nothing, musically, is more emotional than improvisation -- especially between band members. The whole basis of improv is reacting off each others notes and chords and all that is produced from a seat of emotion. Critics and onlookers used to say that Trane and his quartet used to be on the verge of death on stage because, through improv, they had pushed each other to energy and emotional levels that were unhealthy. Elvin Jones, Tranes great drummer, got at the essence when he said, "You gotta be willing to die with a muthaf***a." So when P told me that Bilal and the band had reached this zenith of emotion through improvised collaboration, her being a Thomas, I could see how she couldve become emotionally moved and overwhelmed to the point of tears.

On the flipside, I've seen my Pops cry three times. Once when I was a wee-lad and the burden of caring for four children, with one on the way, on a meager salary had just gotten to him. He sat on the end of his bed cryin. Maybe five or six years later he had finished talkin to friend that was tellin my Pops how difficult it was to raise one of his kids that had gone astray and that caused Pops to shed a couple tears, maybe of guilt, maybe he felt he was too demanding or too hard on us, whatever it was, it made a grown man cry. The only other time I saw dude cry was when we were at the Kennedy Center in DC to see Herbie Hancock with a band he was touring with on his Tribue to Trane tour. He was with heavy hitters like Roy Hargrove, Brecker, Brian Blad and Pattitucci -- all among the most critically acclaimed on their respective instrument. But just as P cried overwhelmed by a bands interaction and creativity and vibe -- Pops cried because he sat there in the Kennedy Center, a splendid hall, in the midst of rich and culture vultures and he felt trapped, shackled. He couldnt react to a music built on call-n-response of the black church. Too much reaction and u were gettin kicked out. Even the musicians seemed reigned in -- it was almost an epiphanic experience for him, an indication on how far gone jazz is from its roots. He said the music had been hijacked. The lack of emotion and creativity and vibe, that night, led him to tears.

I've seen my nigga Rek cry twice. Once in a limo and once in a basement.

On the way to his wedding, the mood was reflective. Earlier that weekend, we had happened upon the song Manolete off Weather Report's seminal album, Sweetnighter. I say happened upon, because that's what happens sometimes with "great albums" -- you spend so much time listening and digesting the more popular, sometimes landmark songs that you overlook hidden gems. In this case, "Boogie Woogie Waltz" was the landmark song. It's now a jazz standard revised by dozens and dozens of artists. But Manolete was always there, the very next track. It was vintage Wayne, blowin the prettiest soprano sax, because that's just what he did. And Miroslauv laid down a bassline that spawned my penchant for using female body parts and actions to describe musical sounds. In this case, Miroslauv's bass sounded like a curvacious black woman switchin in some low-rise jeans. Bewteen the sensual bassline, Waynes's soprano sounding like he wanted to go to Africa and cure Aids and Zawinul's weighty, spacious chords -- it had us all in a daze. But with Rek about to make that serious leap into marriage, it broke him down. He didn't even say much, other than, "It's just so beautiful man."

About a year later, during the Session of 2004, I dropped "Joshua" off Max Roach's "Lift Every Voice and Sing" album. He had teamed up with Billy Harper, to produce an album that was like a historical account 19th century southern black america, complete with choir choruses. Joshua is one of those songs that, every once in a while, somone unearths that almost exhausts you emotional. At the end of the track, the lights came on, most of us were watery-eyed, Rek had straight-up tears trickling down his cheeks. Then the hugs came.

Only music can do that.

I say ALL that to illustrate that I grew up in a music family and my closest friends are music dudes. We don;t just listen to music, it's not just somethin to dance to. we feel music. As for my Pops and my niggas, we're grown men that don;t cry at romamtic flix, don't cry when we sprain our ankles, don't cry when our bosses frustrate us or when people call us names. But a Billy Harper solo can have us sobbin.

Dilla did that to me last week. I wasn;t ballin, wasn't a teary mess. But toward the end of Donuts I got a little misty. I was no doubt sad that night Vino left a voicemail about Dilla's death. My mood and disposition definitely change. Almost like when I learned that Magic was retiring because he got the HIV or when my favorite musician, Joe Henderson, died a few years back. I grew attached to Dilla's music. It's like he was making those beats just for me, because they always tasted just right.

Homeboy was a monster and as I'm lookin out in hiphop right now, no one else is scarin me like him. That's scary.