The Constorium of Greater Minds

I’ve been meaning to post about his for over a month. Last February, I was invited to attend Dilla Day at XM studios, the headquarters of XM Satellite Radio, here in DC. It was a retrospective of J-Dilla’s life and music featuring a panel discussion with hip hop icons Pete Rock and Talib Kweli and special guest Ma Yancey. Attendance was strictly limited to 60 people; mostly people in the music game. I worked my producer/WMUC DJ/music-blogger credentials to scoop up one of the limited tickets for myself. Needless to say, the entrance policy kept things pretty intimate.

The event was sponsored by the Red Bull Music academy. If you don’t know, the RBMA is some serious shit. They sponsor yearly conferences in exotic locales all over the world. This year it’s in Barcelona. It’s been in Sao Paulo, Seattle, Rome, and Cape Town among other world cultural capitals. These conferences bring together up and coming producers, DJs, and musicians for lectures, networking events, and, of course, studio time. Check out their podcasts on iTunes for past lectures and RBMA Radio for DJ sets and interviews with music luminaries.

Before things got underway, they had the honeys passing out the complimentary Red Bull, although I came totally expecting booze. Not even a Heineken? I can’t stand Red Bull. Two sips and I get a headache, but I appreciated the chance to gain some insight into one of my music heroes.

The panel was moderated by the hosts of XM’s The Rhyme and was broadcast live on satellite radio. Pete Rock and Talib shared some studio memories and of recoding in J Dilla’s basement studio. Pete shared how he was inspired by Dilla and how Dilla would call him in the midnight hours to let him listen to a beat he just made. Mrs. Yancey talked a bit about how Pete was one of Dilla’s icons growing up and how they came to be great friends over the years of friendly competition and collaboration. Talib told the audience about how anyone who worked with Dilla would have to come out the the Dirty D. Frank and Dank would be the tour guides and take guests on hours long drives of Detroit to give people the feel of the city before, finally, going to meet J Dilla himsel at his mom’s house.

Some of the cats in the audience tried to get deep with their questions asking Mrs. Yancey about health care for the urban poor. She shared some of her experiences dealing with her son’s battle with Lupus and how medication and treatment bills would get into the tens of thousands of dollars. Mrs. Yancey told us how she’s never felt greater love than she’s felt from fans towards J Dilla and his music. But it wasn’t always so. She wanted to send him to college to study engineering so that if his music career didn’t work out, he could have something to fall back on. Even as his work was getting recognized, she was worried that people were using him for selfish gains; how he was always content to be in the background, out of the spotlight, even as albums he’d worked on garnered Grammy nominations.

The night concluded with a live band recreating some of J Dilla’s most memorable beats. Led by Pete Rock’s younger brother, Grap Luva, they ripped through the creme de la creme of Jaylib, Slum Village, ATCQ, and Donuts. For a few key cuts, local MCs took the mic to spit their renditions of some of my favorite rap verses. Check the video:

Local favorite Flex Matthew takes to the mic to rip F*ck the Police (via Upset the Setup).

All throughout the night, the energy in the room was to the roof. During the panel discussion, everyone was as riveted as I was listening to some their heroes talking about another one of the greats that left us too soon. As Mrs. Yancey mentioned, J Dilla was there that night in spirit. He definitely would have approved of such a fitting tribute.

Some more photos of the night:

Sorry for some of the blurry shots. I’m still getting used to the camera, although it makes for some cool effects in some cases. Some better pictures from the night can be found here.