When Dilla died of a rare blood disease at 32, he had never had a pop hit.Īlso Read Questlove to Executive Produce New J Dilla Documentaryĭilla Time is a portrait of a complex genius taken too young, as well as a glorious study of the music and culture he created.Īuthor Dan Charnas. He conducted more than 200 interviews.Ĭharnas chronicles Dilla’s journey from gifted, Detroit-born James DeWitt Yancey to Grammy-nominated hip-hop producer, his work with acts like D’Angelo and Erykah Badu and how he influenced superstars like Michael Jackson and his sister Janet.

“The reporting and research started for me during the creation of that class, and continued until I submitted the manuscript in 2021,” he tells us. So, I felt a sense of urgency to recount that story, that innovation, and make that argument so he can have his rightful place in history.”Ĭharnas began his work on Dilla Time in 2017 with a course he taught at the Clive Davis Institute at NYU. “But no one had put it all together in a definitive statement: That this beatmaker who worked out of a basement in Detroit literally pioneered a new rhythmic time-feel, one that traditional musicians and electronic producers around the world now use. “In the 15 years since his death, journalists and academics have written about him, and musicians have extolled his work,” Charnas says. For music journalist Dan Charnas, telling J Dilla’s story was a personal quest.ĭilla, the highly influential rap producer, died in 2006.

Dilla Time by Dan Charnas