Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm

Charnas’s (The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop) intricate biography chronicles the life of producer J Dilla (1974–2006), born James DeWitt Yancey. Charnas covers his subject’s early life, his unparalleled genius on the drum machine, and his evolution into the solo artist J Dilla. Dilla broke into hip-hop in Detroit in the early ’90s, with a disorienting style that led to a complete transformation of the sound of popular music. Drawing from more than 190 interviews, Charnas paints a vivid picture of a sometimes-disagreeable artist, obsessed with creating music, who spent his free time at strip clubs and was often the target of harassment by Detroit police. Charnas deconstructs the new path of rhythm that Dilla forged and provides visual examples of rhythm, beats, and pulse arrangements to illustrate why his style was so unique. Particularly moving is Charnas’s exploration of Dilla’s reliance on his mother his entire life; she was his caregiver when he died at 32 from a rare blood disease, and she has led efforts to keep his memory alive.