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Disclaimer/friendly note to BBE: We realise that a record label needs to take measures to ensure that their promotional albums do not get copied and sent out to every Peter, Mary and Paul. However, it is very difficult to give an album the attention it deserves when voice samples (and in this case, excerpts from the movie The Shining) have been strewn across every single track. There’s only so many times that you can take Jack Nicholson saying, “Here’s Johnny!” before you feel overcome with the urge to tear large clumps of hair from your own head…
But now onto what we’re really here for…
For the hip hop world, 2006 will be the year spent in mourning for beat prodigy, Jay Dee/J Dilla. He was unique in the fact that almost everyone that matters in hip hop has exalted him and his work to the highest of heights. From Pete Rock to Jazzy Jeff, Common to Kanye, Pharrell to ?uestlove, Badu to Madlib, the one thing that good artists have in common (apart from being good) is their respect for Dilla. He is/was the Einstein of beats, understanding completely the secret formula for creating rhythms that grab you from the soles of your feet and rattle you so hard that you can hear your heart rebounding against your ribcage.
Ever since Donuts was released earlier this year, people have been waiting for The Shining to drop, holding massive expectations for what was to come. The difference between The Shining and Donuts is that the latter was purely Dilla’s work as he wanted it to be; The Shining in contrast was half completed by Dilla, and half compiled by Dilla’s friend Karriem Riggins, as he thought Dilla would have wanted it to be. Donuts is an album for beat junkies; it seems that The Shining has been completed to uphold Dilla’s legacy for beat junkies and plain hip hop lovers alike.
The opening track is a very affronting Geek Down, featuring a very aggro Busta Rhymes. “This is a fuckin’ emergency! Evacuate the fuckin’ premises, bitch! There’s a fuckin’ fire going on in here, aiight?” Despite the aggressive tone, there is something a little comic about it. You wonder if Dilla would have really opened his album like this. But he did work with a whole array of artists, including those on the ‘harder’ end of the spectrum, so why not represent it? The next track then moves into more familiar territory, seeing Common on the mic with E=MC2 over the top of a characteristically Dilla beat. How he managed to make his beats sound full, thick and syrupy yet also right on the mark is one of his best traits.
We could go through each of the 12 tracks (check Love and Dime Piece in particular for awesomeness) and extract reasons both reasons for strength and weakness, but the fact of the matter is that we all know what Dilla was capable of. Just as words don’t always do the pictures they represent justice, neither do these words match the brilliance that was J Dilla. For goodness sake, don’t ask any questions. Just do the right thing and cop this album.
