I also strongly suspect I am the only person to ever work Dilla into a major work of published fantasy—perhaps a dubious tribute, perhaps, but that's neither here nor there. Pitchfork called Dilla Time "easily the best rap book of the year," describing the book as "not only a love letter to Dilla, but also a riveting immersion into the music of Detroit and the art of beatmaking." [10] Rolling Stone listed the book as one of the best music books of 2022, describing it as "elegantly written and deeply sourced." [11] Writing for Spin, Liza Lentini praised the book, calling it "a portrait of a complex genius taken too young, as well as a glorious study of the music and culture he created." [7]

It is not true that harmony lends itself to interpretation better. You may not have the vocabulary for interpreting it, but that does not mean that the vocabulary doesn’t exist. When you say that rhythm is “more bodily and less intellectual”, you are repeating a white supremacist axiom that has no basis in reality. If it’s the same brain structures processing the different dimensions of music, then how is one dimension more or less “bodily”? By no means is Dilla Time an easy read. There are nightmarish tales of his rugged bout with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura and lupus, detailing excruciating hospital experiences, a possible misdiagnosis, and Dilla’s own fears foreshadowing his eventual demise. After his death, the author confronts some painful realities with regard to the estate, leftover tax debt, and in-fighting between the heirs, some folks talking out of turn, plus lawyers, lengthy lawsuits, lost albums, and all the bullsh*t that has dogged Dilla’s legacy since he passed away in February 2006. This program contains examples of J Dilla's music performed in the story by drummer Nate Smith and is accompanied by a bonus PDF of maps, photos, guides, and more. All in all, this book was an education on the evolution of Hip-Hop after J Dilla got his hands on it. It was a walk through Detroit and other spaces and places. It was an exploration of the international landscapes that he touched from the UK & Australia to Hip-Hop loving markets in Japan, etc. I loved Chapter 15: Descendants and Disciples, my fave chapter - it was sooo good! There were layers and layers of information about adjacent artists and musicians and Dilla's influence on their style and what-begat-what-begat-what... each layer was delicious, so interesting, mindbending, fun, and unique. I gotta go look for the playlist someone's made on this book on Spotify, it's bound to be dope.

Dilla Time

With this assiduously researched, stirringly told, and expansively elucidated accounting of J Dilla’s life as muse, mythos, and generationally transformative composer of hip-hop beats, Dan Charnas has provided readers with an alchemist’s cookbook of its titular, wizardly subject.”— GREG TATE, author of Flyboy in the Buttermilk We get to be a fly on the wall for the Soulquarians era at Electric Lady Studios in New York City for the making of D’Angelo’s Voodoo, Common’s Like Water for Chocolate, and Badu’s Mama’s Gun. The day-to-day details of Dilla’s time living with Common in Los Angeles, working with Madlib and the cats at Stones Throw, the making of his swan song album, Donuts, and just about everything and everybody in between. Readers tag along on legendary Dilla pilgrimages to New York City in the early days, Philly bro-dates and record store missions with DJ Jazzy Jeff, then later Europe and Brazil with the homies. I look at J Dilla as a man who redefined the word ‘innovative’. This book makes you feel like you traveled his journey every single step’ – DJ Premier I basically devoured this book and thoroughly enjoyed the stories about Dilla’s work with Common, Slum Village and others. It was fascinating to learn about some of the deeper meaning around the sample choices on Donuts and I came away with greater context around why and how Dilla made the beats that he made. Exceptional… Charnas has done well to untangle the ever-evolving skein of art and money and family and friends [Dilla’s] legend encompasses … A rich read… Deeply and vividly reported’– Robert Christgau, Observer

This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius.” —QUESTLOVE I recently finished reading Dan Charnas’ book Dilla Time. It’s a good one! If you are interested in how hip-hop works, you should read it. The book’s major musicological insight is elegantly summed up by this image: Even in death, his own legacy, estate, and posthumous releases have been shrouded in conflict between collaborators, heirs, and lawyers, in addition to elitist attitudes, relationship disintegration, and a proliferation of misinformation. It seems it was high time and long overdue for somebody to step up and finally set the J Dilla record straight, for both the heads and the annals of history. But who would dare accept such a bold mission? Why do you consider it “racist” to prioritize harmony over rhythm? Harmony has more inherent complexity to it, and it really is more cerebral and less visceral. It has nothing to do with race, in my opinion. Rhythm is more for dancing to than thinking about on an intellectual level, and rhythm doesn’t express emotion the way harmony does. It’s not a coincidence that when an a musician, even a modern pop musician, wants to write a song that is more emotional/sad, they ease up on the percussion and focus more on harmony and melody.J Dilla turned what one generation deemed musical error into what the next knew to be musical innovation. In this splendid book, Dan Charnas offers an uncanny mix of research and vision, documentation and interpretation, plenitude and momentum. Dilla Time is definitive. And exhilarating’ – Margo Jefferson, author of Negroland This literary device functions as a stunning rollout, incorporating both anthropology and musicology, an engrossing display of scholarship that gets its hooks in you while setting the tone and trajectory of the stirring story to follow. For the rap nerds and Dillaphiles, Charnas takes readers inside a plethora of the producer’s most crucial collaborations. Dilla’s embryonic lair in the Yancey family’s basement in Conant Gardens. Primordial Slum Village studio sessions at RJ Rice’s in Detroit. Inter-band fistfights recording The Pharcyde’s “Runnin’” on Delicious Vinyl. Production squad The Ummah’s inception, explosion, and dissolution, and how it affected Dilla’s relationship with Q-Tip moving forward. Madrigal, Alexis (4 February 2022). "The Genius of Hip-Hop Producer J Dilla Shines in New Book 'Dilla Time' by Dan Charna". KQED . Retrieved 5 March 2023. Total tangent which may actually end this review, which has sort of spiraled: I think Charnas does an incredible job at leaving the facts stand as they are themselves in this biography. There is a thrumming undercurrent of admiration, which weakens it slightly, but overall, the tilt is bounded to his musical talent, and other facts are presented with no moral tilt. Strip club habits, tendencies to prayer, infidelity, temper, brotherly love, misogynism; all are presented in an even light for the reader to make of as they wish. We come away recognizing that Dilla was one of the greatest electronic music producers of all time, but was also just, on all levels, just a guy. Super cool.