And at the core of this adulation is innovation: a new kind of musical time-feel that he created on a drum machine, but one that changed the way traditional musicians play.

He wasn’t known to mainstream audiences, and when he died at age thirty-two, he had never had a pop hit.And he rewinds the histories of American rhythms: from the birth of Motown soul to funk, techno, and disco. In the same way that J Dilla’s music was a portal for us to hear our world, understand our technology, and feel the pulse of life anew, Charnas has made a portal through which to understand our time—historical time, musical time, and James Yancey’s own time—in a new way. Equal parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century. JAMES DEWITT YANCEY (1974-2006), known professionally as Jay Dee or J Dilla, was one of the most influential music producers of our era. Dilla's beats, startling some people with their seeming 'sloppiness,' were actually the work of a perfectionist al- most spiritually devoted to his music.

Filled with impeccable reportage, elegant prose, and incandescent anecdotes, Dilla Time is more than an urgently needed biography of hip hop’s most revolutionary producer. He wasn't known to mainstream audiences, and when he died at age thirty-two, he had never had a pop hit. This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius' - QUESTLOVEEqual parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century. Charnas’ book is also an ethnographic key to the funk-da-fide Detroit family and community which nurtured and skilled Dilla in the science of soulful music production from the cradle to his tragic deathbed– preparing the artist to forge his own Cubistic, canonical and revelatory extension of the architectonic Motown legacy. Based on nearly two hundred original interviews, and filled with graphics that teach us to feel and “see” the rhythm of Dilla’s beats, Dilla Time is a book as defining and unique as J Dilla’s music itself.

Equal parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century by pioneering a new musical time-feel, an accomplishment on par with the achievements of Louis Armstrong and James Brown. Yet since his death, J Dilla has become a demigod: revered by jazz musicians and rap icons from Robert Glasper to Kendrick Lamar; memorialised in symphonies and taught at universities. Based on nearly two hundred original interviews, and filled with graphics that teachus to feel and to 'see' the rhythm of Dilla's beats, Dilla Time is a book as defining and unique as J Dilla's music itself.

By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. Here, music is a story of what happens when human and machine times are synthesized into something new. His name wasn't known to mainstream audiences, and when he died at the age of thirty-two he had never had a pop hit.He scaled the mountain of Dilla’s complex career and sent back instructions so that others could make the climb. Based on nearly two hundred original interviews, and filled with graphics that teach us to feel and "see" the rhythm of Dilla's beats, Dilla Time is a book as defining and unique as J Dilla's music itself. In Dilla Time, Dan Charnas chronicles the life of James DeWitt Yancey, from his gifted Detroit childhood to his rise as a sought-after hip-hop producer to the rare blood disease that caused his premature death. The book’s heart is its rich, evocative musicological analysis, complete with rhythm diagrams, of Dilla’s beats… one of the few hip-hop sagas to take the music as seriously as its maker.