Fantastic Vol. 2 by Slum Village is a classic album in my eyes.  “2u4u” (from that album) serves a dual purpose in my life as my favorite song from that album along with my being my favorite J Dilla beat.  As sort of a rule, most Dilla productions should be left alone to shine in their natural beauty.

Then there’s Mar who can’t leave well enough alone.  And I’m actually glad.  His Mar Variation projects have been nothing but stellar.  Watch him take the instrumental into a corner and sing sweetly to it.

Well look at what Stones Throw was nice enough to treat us to?  Recently, the Los Angeles-based independent juggernaut teamed up with Serato (the company that slowly and singlehandedly continues to completely change the DJ game) to release a limited edition J Dilla-themed package called the Donut Shop, complete with control discs, slipmats and some exclusive music.

However, not everyone owns turntables.  Myself included.  Folks begged Stones Throw to make the exclusive instrumentals available in the store for those who are vinyl-impaired.  Instead of putting them up for sale, they gave it to us for free.  Make sure you say thank you if you see ‘em in the streets.

DOWNLOAD | J Dilla – Donut Shop EP

NOTE: The MP3s are no longer available online. Vinyl only.

One of my favorite things to do in my spare time other than provide y’all with treats via this blog is produce and promote events with my Rare Form crew based here in my hometown of New York City.  And our most successful event to date is our annual tribute to the late, great James “J Dilla” Yancey, entitled Donuts Are Forever.  February 6th, 2010 marked the fourth edition of the event (which took place at The Bell House in Brooklyn) and it was undoubtedly the best one yet.

We were fortunate enough to have one of our favorite people in the world (and one of Dilla’s very good friends), ?uestlove of the Legendary Roots Crew, come down and bless us with over 70 RE-MADE Dilla beats courtesy of himself and the rest of The Roots.  As he so eloquently stated that evening, “this is more like a clinic than a party.”  Other sets were provided by DJ Parler, Colorado’s own DJ Low Key, DJ Brainchild and Rare Form’s own DJ Tara.

The highlight of the night was being graced with the presence of Maureen “Ma Dukes” Yancey, Dilla’s mom.  And by the time the night was over, we (along with support from the likes of Stones Throw, Okayplayer, Brooklyn Bodega, Decon, Frank 151, Fusicology and Ladies Love) had raised $4400 for the J Dilla Foundation (of which Ma Dukes is the CEO, chair and spokesperson).

If you couldn’t make it or want to re-live the magic of the evening, check out the video above. Super duper fat shouts to Hot Mop Films who came down and filmed from the time the doors opened ’til the last few stragglers shuffled out.

Kudos to the Stussy gang for this nice piece of film.  A couple of weeks back, in conjunction with the anniversary of J Dilla’s death / birthday, Stussy released a limited edition tee which showcases the famous B+ (aka Brian Cross) photo of the man himself in front of his turntable and MPC doing what he does best.  Oh, and Dilla just happens to be rocking a Stussy tee in the photo. How ill is that? 

Obviously the tees are selling like buttered hotcakes.  But they didn’t stop there.  As a special treat, they released this nice digital mini-documentary on the Detroit beat magician told through the eyes and ears of some of his closest friends and colleagues.  This is a great education for those of you who might still be in the dark.

The OG black & white version of this fantastic video has been doing its circles around the Internet for a little while now.  I was happy to stumble across this slick, refurbished version when I was on Vimeo earlier.  Coodie & Chike (of the ever-buzzworthy Creative Control team) slid their video for Mos Def‘s “History” video over to the folks at Pure Studios to breathe a little color into their grey scale affair. 

I love that it still keeps that vintage feel with the washed out hues.  The Ecstatic was one of the top five albums of 2009 and I’m glad this J Dilla heatrock is being pushed as a single.  Hopefully that Black Star reunion isn’t far behind.

This is how you set the new year off properly, my friends.  Back in 2009 in sunny Los Angeles, VTech & Mochilla produced a three-event series called Timeless.  Although the Mulatu Astatke and Arthur Verocai shows proved to be extremely satisfying, it was the Suite for Ma Dukes event (a orchestral tribute to the late, great James ‘J Dilla’ Yancey, conducted by the amazing Miguel Atwood-Ferguson) that was easily the favorite of the entire collection. 

In March of this year, a DVD of the entire series will be made available for sale to the public.  Want a sneak peek at the Suite for Ma Dukes portion?  Of course you do.  Above, experience a beautiful re-creation of J Dilla’s “Take Notice” (from 2007′s Ruff Draft EP).  It’s kinda breathtaking seeing it in this light.

p.s. VTech was nice enough to let a nice, crispy MP3 of this go for your downloading pleasure.  Feel free to grab it below (pause).

DOWNLOAD | The Suite for Ma Dukes Orchesta – “Take Notice”

 All hail the mighty Gods of Mochilla for bringing this to fruition.  Things like this give me chills.  Recently, the crew of horn-toting biological brothers known as the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and viola villain Miguel Atwood-Ferguson collabo’ed at a special show in the confines of Los Angeles’ Echoplex.  The song?  A special arrangement of Rene Costy’s “Scrabble.”  Many hip-hop heads know this as the original sample for one of J Dilla’s most celebrated tunes, “F*ck the Police.”  Just sit back and watch.  Shouts to The Sounds of VTech as well.

Usually I like to type my own little blurbs for what I post. And other times, the artist actually articulates their feelings perfectly and there’s no need for me to.  All my Detroit heads ALREADY KNOW.  Shouts to the whole A-Side Worldwide crew. 14KT just dropped his old-new instrumental album Nowalataz. Here’s what he has to say:

Here it is… a project I unofficially had done since 2006. It started when James Yancey aka J Dilla passed that February. To cope with the death of my favorite producer, who I liked to call my unofficial “musical mentor,” I started making “donuts”…uncontrollably. I never planned to release any of the material out of respect for Dilla and his craft. I’ve shared some of the music with others, in which they would repeatedly ask me to hear it, so I decided to put a little something together and make it official. JUST FOR Y’ALL.

This is a collection of beats created about 3 years ago. Some “donuts” style, some just around that era of 14KT beats. Now & Laters were always a favorite candy of mine. I used to go to Mindell’s Pharmacy in Ypsilanti back in the day and buy ALL of them. Sadly, I even stole change from my grandma’s (RIP) purse for them. They are addictive, yet fun to eat…something I found mutual when making music at the time. Ironically, I fell back in love with Nowalataz around this era (ask my homey Sarah “Merk Merk,” haha). Enjoy.

DOWNLOAD | 14KT – Nowalataz

The creative process of music production is a true talent.  And one of the most talented brothers I know in that craft is none other than the homie Zo!  Here’s a video he threw up on YouTube today.  I won’t say much.  Let’s just say I hope a full version of this comes to fruition.  Zo! says… 

I woke up yesterday morning feeling very inspired and felt that it was necessary to share my love and appreciation for a crew that was a heavy influence on my music. These kats pretty much changed the way that I listened to and heard hip-hop as a whole. One of my favorite SV joints is “The Look Of Love” (yes… ALL versions of it). This is the J-88 Remix version – the 12″ vinyl joint with the light blue ‘Superrappin’ cover art. Sometimes I’m not always that great at putting things into words exactly the way that I’d like, I’d rather play and create instead.

With that being said, Baatin and Dilla…we miss y’all and will continue to hold your legacies down properly. T3 and El, y’all are always family this way…respect due.

RIP TITUS “BAATIN” GLOVER (1974 – 2009)

It was quite unexpected to roll outta bed earlier to the sounds of my phone text message ring going off and finding out via DJ Brainchild (who saw a tweet from Dwele) that Titus “Baatin” Glover, one of the founding members of Slum Village, passed away today.  The cause  and circumstances are still unknown at the time of this post.  I’ll update once I get more information. 

Regardless, this is extremely sad.  Especially after the passing of J Dilla a few years ago.  I don’t think many people understand how influential of a group the original Slum Village was.  They hold the torch for Detroit.  And now two of them have moved on to a better place.  One can only imagine how T3 is doing right now (keep him in your prayers).  It was well documented that Baatin was going through some things in his life (hence Elzhi replacing him in SV) but was in the process of getting it back on track.  The love was there unconditionally.  He even reunited w/ T3 and Elzhi and were recording material for the brand new SV album, Villa Manifesto.

In the meantime, his music lives on.  Everyone knows all of the SV classics, but not many are aware of the solo work that Baatin released.  I’m gonna throw a bunch of Baatin joints below that I have in the stash.  Take some time out to listen and reflect.  HIP-HOP FOREVER.  Celebrate life, folks.

DOWNLOAD | Baatin – “Faster Than Your Life”
DOWNLOAD | Baatin – “Girl”
DOWNLOAD | Baatin – “Magic” (prod. by Black Milk)
DOWNLOAD | Baatin – “Marvelous” (prod. by Black Milk)

BONUS:
DOWNLOAD | Attica Blues f/ Baatin & T3 – “Talk To Me”
DOWNLOAD | Havana f/ Baatin – “The New Dance Show”
DOWNLOAD | Focus f/ Frank Nitt, Illa J, Baatin & T3 – “Homage To Dilla”

JAMES “J DILLA” YANCEY (1974 – 2006)
MICHAEL JACKSON (1958 – 2009)

What more can I say that isn’t already conveyed in the two photos above?  Totally forgot I had this one in the stash.  I had to get it up for you guys before I call it a night on the blogging.  It’s been a long day and night.  Appreciate music and appreciate life folks.  Two Midwest music legends share space in a better place.

DOWNLOAD | Michael Jackson – “History (Ummah Radio Mix)”

When I’m not crankin’ out web design work for the day job or getting this blog tight, I’m one of the four members of a event promotion group here in NYC called Rare Form.  And since 2007, we’ve been throwing an annual event called Donuts Are Forever, a charity event to raise awareness about lupus and to pay tribute to Mr. James ‘J Dilla’ Yancey (who succumbed from the vicious aformentioned disease). 

On February 7th, 2009, we produced the third installment of this monster-of-an-event and raised $3,000 for the Alliance for Lupus Research.  And all the while, vibing out to the music of a Detroit legend.  For lack of a better adjective, it was amazing.

The soundtrack for the night was provided by DJs Myles, Parler, Center, Brainchild, Sucio Smash along with our headliners Waajeed and Ge-ology.  We also threw Von Pea & Donwill of Tanya Morgan on last minute for host / hypeman duties.  If you were there, THANK YOU.  We couldn’t have done it without you.  To see pics from this and the past editions as well as more video, visit www.donutsareforever.com.

Shouts to the homie 6th Sense for bringing the flipcam to get the above footage.

Ladies and gents, meet DJ Turne from the Netherlands.  This is probably in my top five posthumous Dilla mixes.  It was one of the very first ones to drop shortly after his untimely demise in 2006.  It’s just a very well done mix.  Fantastic blends and great song selections.  It pretty much encompasses the entire Yancey spectrum in just under an hour’s time.  I would give this mix to someone who may not be familar w/ J Dilla if I wanted them to get interested in learning more.  Unfortunately, I don’t think he ever did a second volume of this.  He definitely should.

Alot of folks may think it’s sacrilegious to do this sort of thing.  Especially in Dilla’s case.  This mix definitely caused a little uproar in that aspect.  But personally, I think it’s educational as long as you don’t reveal the secrets.  AME from Belgium did his homework and released this as a dedication to the genius of Dilla Dog.  A fluid and continuous montage of some choice cuts from Donuts along with the original samples.  And you must be crazy if you think I’m giving you a tracklist.

First of all, I jacked this from Nah Right (props due).  Secondly, with all the rapid fire posting that Nah Right does these days, it got buried kinda quick.  So I’m gonna let it breathe here.  And third, apparently I am dumb late on this in cyberspace time.

The tale goes like this:  Delicious Vinyl label founder Michael Ross was sitting on a bunch of unreleased instrumentals from the late, great J Dilla (I guess from some sort of unfinished project).  So what was the next logical thing to do?  Handing them over Dilla’s little brother, Illa J, to get busy over.  The end product?  An album entitled Yancey Boys that will be dropping sometime in the near future.  The LP will have some guest stars as well.  I’m always amped to hear some unearthed Dilla.

Let this joint wet your whistle for the time being.

DOWNLOAD | Illa J - “We Here”

Wow, something dope is making the cyberspace rounds.  An MF Doom banger called “Sniper Elite.”  Better known to geeks such as myself as “Anti-American Graffiti,” one of the beats off J Dilla‘s posthumous opus Donuts (and one of my favorites on it). 

Nothing else to say, really.  Doom blazed it.  Rumors still swirl about a full-length Dilla / Doom project that may or may not exist.  So for now, deal with this.  Oh, and I gotta shout out Nah Right because that’s where I found it.  Gotta give the credit where it’s due.

DOWNLOAD | MF Doom – “Sniper Elite”

Ladies and gents, I actually like “Diamond Girl.”  I like it alot.  However you won’t be seeing much mainstream music on this here blog.  Pretty much little to none.  You can find that kinda stuff anywhere and everywhere.  Get ya Google on.  But this is a special case.

I heard this specific mix on a Cornerstone mixtape (the one DJs Premier and Wonder did together).  The first minute is acapella, and then goes into pieces of about four classic instrumentals.  The beat that I almost knocked over my monitor on was the second one (specifically at the 1:23 mark).  I’m not gonna tell you what it is.  Just click the play button when you get to the bottom.

I was so enamored by it that I MySpace-inboxed Wonder asking if he had a mix with just that ONE BEAT.  He unfortunately said no.  It was something he did on the fly.  But he was kind enough to send over this MP3 for me to share w/ the world.  Not everyone has a connect to receive a Cornerstone mixtape in the mail, y’know.  Enjoy.