Since splash!-Mag started last year, we had a couple of great moments. We did one of our most impressive interviews with Frank Bush and Derrick Harvey aka Frank N Dank. At this year’s splash!-Festival Frank N Dank met John Robinson aka Lil’Sci (from Scienz of Life) for the first time in their life. We filmed their conversation about (the mystery of) J. Dilla and the greatness of the hiphop culture. Get to know three artists, who are not only great when it comes to music…
Q-Tip Entrance:
Peace my People! So I missed this Noisemakers Session w/ Tip but I was @ the last one with Questlove so I had to post this joint. I can only imagine the power of this session right here as Tip is easily one of the ambassadors of the Hip Hop Jazz/soul next level movement. Glad I can share this with you all as I easily consider this a history lesson. Study the music yall!
Q-Tip on J Dilla:
Another one in the can… Wednesday’s Noisemakers with Q-Tip was a grand ole time. Supa Qool DJ Uncle Q was in the building playing the classics to set it up, The Cypher carried the spirit in middle relief, and Rosey shut it down. The Abstract shared with Peter Rosenberg animated anecdotes about: * the humble Murry Bergtraum High beginnings of A Tribe Called Quest * Red Alert giving his nephew Mike G. of The Jungle Brothers the acetate of The Bridge is Over for the H.S. talent competition * composing Bonita Applebum and I Left My Wallet in El Segundo as a “pause” beat at the tender age of 15 * July 4th, 1988 being a very special day in Hip-Hop history… * Busta Rhymes considering joining ATCQ subsequent to the breakup of Leaders of The New School And this was before the intermission!!! Yesterday, the blogosphere was awash with talk and clips of Tip working with Miles Davis and J Dilla, but as the dust settled, there was a clip that very few had the chance to see. Check out the impromptu jam session with Q-Tip, Questlove, Daru Jones and the rest of The Cypher rocking out on Dilla’s Lightworks.
PROPS: (Taken from: http://filthyspeakeraddict.com/)
Q-Tip on Miles Davis:
Q-Tip on Busta Rhymes:
Q-Tip on The appeal of ATCQ:
Q-Tip, Questlove? and The Cypher perform Lightworks (DiLLA Beat):
THREE YEARS AFTER HIS UNTIMELY DEATH, J DILLA’S BEATS AND REPUTATION LOOM EVER LARGER OVER HIP HOP. BUT FOR HIS MOTHER – WHO NURSED THE VISIONARY PRODUCER THROUGH A CHRONIC ILLNESS AND HAS WATCHED HIS ESTATE LANGUISH IN LIMBO – THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES. BY KELLEY LOUISE CARTER
There’s nothing Maureen Yancey wouldn’t do for her children. But as she sits in the basement studio of her only surviving son’s Los Angeles home, she struggles with the one thing she hasn’t done since her firstborn, James Dewitt Yancey known in hip hop circles as Jay Dee or J Dilla – three years ago of complications from lupus. She just can’t. She didn’t do it when the ambulance arrived at the nearby house Dilla shared with. Common, and she didn’t when they failed to revive him from cardiac arrest. She couldn’t even bring herself to do it when she picked out which baseball cap she’d place by his coffin.
“When he left, I had an awful void,” she says calmly. “I didn’t grieve like you always think you’d grieve. I always had a joy and the strength to help others to get through it. But…” her voice trails off, hands smoothing down her jeans. “I haven’t cried yet.”
Still, the memories came flooding back when she flew from Detroit to visit the city where her son was buried at age 32. “I rejoiced in the fact that he wasn’t sick anymore,” she says, “and that he’d done what he came here to do. I do believe that. His purpose on earth was to come here and give us the music that he had in his heart and soul.”
The equipment that surrounds her is Dilla’s, the same gear he used to create the deceptively simple, unspeakably beautiful music that solidified his reputation as one of hip hop’s greatest. As Busta Rhymes put it in 2007, “He wasn’t just a producer, he was the best producer.”
Many of her son’s friends – Common, Busta, Erykah Badu – still call regularly, and keep her son’s music in rotation. Q-Tip’s latest single, “Move” (Universal Motown, 2008), was built around a Dilla beat, and her other son John Yancey, a rapper known as Illa J has released the powerful new album, Yancey Boys (Delicious Vinyl, 2008), which was produced by his big brother.
(more…)
The John Robinson Project 