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1) J Dilla Disassembled His Cassette Deck to Extend Certain Samples
How one of rap music’s most storied producers used technological innovation to make incredible pause tape beats. https://microchop.substack.com/p/j-dilla-disassembled-his-cassette
How one of rap music’s most storied producers used technological innovation to make incredible pause tape beats. https://microchop.substack.com/p/j-dilla-disassembled-his-cassette
2) In mid-October of 2006, Cincinnati native and esteemed veteran producer Hi-Tek dropped his sophomore album 'Hi-Teknology²: The Chip.'
3) Featuring Common, Devin The Dude, Q-Tip, Busta Rhymes, and many other talented MCs spitting verses over his expert production, the record received widespread praise from critics.
https://hiphopdx.com/reviews/id.702/title.hi-tek-hi-teknology-2-the-chip
https://hiphopdx.com/reviews/id.702/title.hi-tek-hi-teknology-2-the-chip
4) 'Hi-Teknology²: The Chip' contains no shortage of highlight verses, but the most moving moment on the entire project may be an answering machine message from the late J Dilla during the opening of “Music For Life.”
5) The Detroit icon, who had tragically passed away just eight months prior to the album’s release, had the following to say about his lifelong love of sound.
6) “Music is—my total existence, dawg, straight up/Everything in my life revolves around music/It’s like, I can’t get in a relationship/’Cause I’m still with my first love, which is music/You know what I’m sayin’? For real/It’s the reason I’m here.”- J Dilla
7) Dilla’s passion for creating sound was evident throughout his life, but when and where did the relationship with his first love start?
According to a 2003 Rime interview, it began with elementary school music class and piano/drum lessons in church.
https://www.stonesthrow.com/news/2003/05/do-the-math
According to a 2003 Rime interview, it began with elementary school music class and piano/drum lessons in church.
https://www.stonesthrow.com/news/2003/05/do-the-math
8) Then Run DMC dropped “Sucker MCs” and Whodini released “Big Mouth” in 1984, sparking a neverending fascination with music production. “Those songs were the first time I heard the beats that weren’t melodic—just drums,” Dilla told Rime.
https://www.stonesthrow.com/news/2003/05/do-the-math
https://www.stonesthrow.com/news/2003/05/do-the-math
9) Dilla, who started building his skills as a DJ at a young age and played records in a local park when he was two, began a multi-year odyssey of making pause tape beats not long after hearing “Sucker MCs” and “Big Mouth.” https://microchop.substack.com/p/j-dilla-disassembled-his-cassette
10) Based on observations from some of his collaborators, Dilla’s pause tape productions were a cut above most after just a few years of practice.
11) According to late Slum Village rapper Baatin, a teenaged Dilla would pick up him, Dilla’s brother, and T3 up in his Escort and drive them around Detroit while showcasing his latest pause button concoctions. Some of the samples he flipped were pretty surprising.
12) “He would come and pick us up in the Escort and play these beats from the song ‘Louie Louie’ that he had sampled on two tape decks,” Baatin told Bill Murphy in a 2006 Electronic Musician article.
https://www.emusician.com/gear/the-enduring-legacy-of-j-dilla
https://www.emusician.com/gear/the-enduring-legacy-of-j-dilla
13) No matter what he sampled, the music that came through the speakers left the passengers in awe. “We’d roll around listening to beats he made with the pause and record on two tape decks,” Baatin told @Ronniewrites in his classic '06 @waxpoetics piece.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170315034459/http://www.waxpoetics.com/blog/features/articles/son-of-detroit-j-dilla-remembered/
https://web.archive.org/web/20170315034459/http://www.waxpoetics.com/blog/features/articles/son-of-detroit-j-dilla-remembered/
14) “He was just a genius at that, even back then. The beats sounded so perfect.”- Baatin via @waxpoetics
https://web.archive.org/web/20170315034459/http://www.waxpoetics.com/blog/features/articles/son-of-detroit-j-dilla-remembered/
https://web.archive.org/web/20170315034459/http://www.waxpoetics.com/blog/features/articles/son-of-detroit-j-dilla-remembered/
15) Dilla’s pause button finesse was so impressive that it even lead to an early, unreleased Slum Village track called "Tell Me What You Want." But how did he manage to make something so damn good with such restrictive equipment?
16) His cousin and early collaborator Que. D shed some light on the topic in the Wax Poetics cover story. In true DIY fashion the late Detroit producer disassembled his cassette deck and modified it so he could elongate specific parts of the tape and sample them.
17) This next level ingenuity proved to Que. D that his cousin was operating on a different wavelength than most of his peers. “That shit, to me, showed that he was more than a beat maker—he was like a mad scientist,” he told Wax Poetics.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170315034459/http://www.waxpoetics.com/blog/features/articles/son-of-detroit-j-dilla-remembered/
https://web.archive.org/web/20170315034459/http://www.waxpoetics.com/blog/features/articles/son-of-detroit-j-dilla-remembered/
18) If you're enjoying this thread, click here to read the full article. https://microchop.substack.com/p/j-dilla-disassembled-his-cassette
19) Click here to learn more about Micro-Chop and support/subscribe. https://microchop.substack.com/p/coming-soon
