A blog about hip-hop, jazz, punk, psychedelic rock, funk, and whatever other kinds of music I get inspired to write about. There are too many good sounds out there for me to get to them all, but I'm doing my best.
The second Madvillain album. The third Quasimoto album. The
Supreme Team and Professionals albums. Rock
Konducta. Dozens of jazz projects. Cocaine
Pinatas with Freddie Gibbs. I could keep listing announced Madlib projects
that have not as of yet seen the light of day, but a longer list would just
make me sadder. Since the release of the thirteenth installment in Madlib’s mostly
underrated Medicine Show series a few
years ago, things have been mostly quiet from his camp. He’s been holed up in
his four-room studio space for the last few years, working on new stuff that he
doesn’t particularly care to release.
Now, in a rare interview with the Bad Kid, the fans are
getting a whole bunch more upcoming albums that can make us sad when they never
come out. According to Lib, every few years he goes through a year-long period
where he just listens to jazz records and plays a bunch of instruments. He just
finished up one of those years, so a ton of new Yesterdays Universe records are
on the way. He’s also producing a lot of songs on the new Mos Def record and
working on some other hip-hop projects that he doesn’t name. He’s almost done
with the third Quas album, finally. On the Madlib getting weird tip, he said
that he’s got some “early Kraftwerk-type stuff,” and that he listens to
Throbbing Gristle and other industrial music. Based on well how his forays into
jazz and broken beat have gone, a Madlib industrial or minimal wave album is an
exciting prospect. Little bits of a new Mos song, a great Busta remix, and what
could be some of that Kraftwerk-type stuff from his recent performances in
London can be heard in the video too. Oh and he mentions an unreleased J Dilla
jazz record and electronic record. He’s probably put a few dozen albums’ worth
of new material to the side over the last few years, and it sounds like a few
of those might actually see release this year. Most won’t.
1st Down - "A Day Wit the Homiez" b/w "Front Street" (Payday Records, 1995)
This month is the seventh annual Dilla month, in which fans
of the late J Dilla celebrate his contributions to hip hop in remembrance of
his premature death at the age of 33 on February 10, 2006. This month has seen
the release of Music from the Lost
Scrolls Vol. 1, an EP of four unreleased tracks, and the announcement of The Diary, an unreleased album
showcasing Dilla’s (still mostly underappreciated) skills as a rapper. The purpose
of this feature is to look back at overlooked 12” singles from the past, so
along with being excited that his estate seems to be in much better hands than
it was previously (the debacle surrounding The
Rebirth of Detroit best illustrates the problems that Dilla’s posthumous catalog
has had), we should look back to the pre-Dilla days, before his work with De La
Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and the Pharcyde, when James Yancey was known as
Jay Dee.
After producing one song on Da’ Enna C’s Throw Ya Hands in the Air 12” in 1994,
Jay Dee made his first real mark the next year with the first and only single
released by his original pre-Slum Village group 1st Down. While Jay
Dee made his rap debut with Slum Village when their Fan-Tas-Tic (Vol. 1) bootleg began circulating among in the know
hip hop heads in 1997, he served strictly as producer in 1st Down,
with underrated Detroit emcee Phat Kat holding down the mic. 1st
Down’s early songs were so promising that Payday Records, home of Showbiz &
A.G., Jeru the Damaja, and other New York legends, signed them and they became
the first Detroit artists on the label.
Phat Kat is good rapper, but it’s unlikely that the songs
would have much staying power without Jay Dee’s production. In the year
following the 1st Down 12”, Jay Dee recorded “Stakes is High” with
De La Soul, worked on seven of the songs on the Pharcyde’s sophomore album Labcabincalifornia (including the
immortal “Runnin’” and “Drop”), formed the Ummah with Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed
Muhammad and began work on the fourth A Tribe Called Quest Record, and recorded
the demos that made up Slum Village’s Fan-Tas-Tic
(Vol. 1). Jay Dee’s 1996 is one of the most impressive runs of any producer
in the history of hip hop, and the songs on 1st Down’s lone single
are valuable for showing the early Jay Dee style exhibited on his 1996 work in
its embryonic stage. The drunk-sounding unquantized drums, the sparse sample
chops, and the subtle bass work are all present, but Jay Dee hadn’t quite
perfected his own style yet. On “Front Street,” he even put sleigh bells in his
beat, following a trend set by Buckwild and other New York producers. The Jay
Dee of just one year later wouldn’t have dreamed of following the sonic trends
of others.
Payday Records folded right after the 1st Down
record came out, and the group split up, allowing Jay Dee to focus on his work
with the Ummah and Slum Village, while Phat Kat began building his solo career.
“It Don’t Get No Liver Than This” and “No Place to Go,” two unreleased songs
that the duo recorded for Payday, were included on a 2002 CD reissue of the
single, along with an underwhelming remix of “Front Street,” and the duo
continued to work together until Jay Dee’s death in 2006. Phat Kat showed up as
a featured artist on standout tracks from Fan-Tas-Tic
(Vol. 1) and Jay Dee’s solo debut album Welcome
2 Detroit, and Dilla produced multiple songs on Phat Kat’s albums The Undeniable LP (2004) and Carte Blanche (2007). Taken together,
this decade-plus of collaborations makes for a pretty top notch 1st
Down catalog, and it’s a shame that Dilla’s premature death prevented another
proper 1st Down project.
