Photo credit: Brian “B+” Cross

In just over 10 years, James Dewitt Yancey aka Jay Dee aka J Dilla accomplished more in terms of recorded output than most artists do in a lifetime. From producing GRAMMY award-winning songs to earning the adulation of his peers and creating a signature sound that altered hip hop and soul music forever, Jay did it all while being the most influential “unknown” producer in the business. At a time when hip hop producers were more recognizable than the artists they worked with, Jay shunned the limelight and humbly revolutionized the sound of hip hop with his meticulous, soulful productions.

Jay’s music mirrored his fastidious nature. Nothing ever sounded out of place in his beats. This quality along with a mathematical sense of order was reflected in his personal life and appearance: clothing and records kept in plastic, shoes neatly stacked in boxes, crisply pressed jeans, and the ever-present feather duster never far from hand. Yet it was the imperfect, the mistakes in music that excited him. His signature sloppy, off-beat drum programming gave his tracks a feeling of freshness and spontaneity, standing in stark contrast to the mechanical, perfectly-quantized beats which characterized much of hip hop at the time.

Jay was a stylistic innovator who was never content to stay in the same pocket. From the airy fender rhodes and handclaps that defined his early sound with Slum Village and Tribe, to the eclectic genre-melding of Welcome to Detroit and the back-to-the-breaks style of Donuts, his music continually evolved at a dizzying pace. Once a particular style was mastered, he felt little need to repeat himself, preferring to push boundaries beyond what was expected or easy for him. Unlike so many innovators who wouldn’t recover from their work being co-opted and commercialized, Jay never ceased to experiment and push his music to new heights.

Combined with his sheer wizardry on the sampler, this artistic restlessness placed Jay at the vanguard of hip hop production where he was viewed as the “producers producer,” someone who fellow musicians looked to for inspiration. Pharrell declared him his favorite producer. Kanye called him a drum god. Questlove stated that Jay’s music was the only thing to give him goosebumps in the last ten years. His sound distilled the best qualities of hip hop into a potent mixture that encapsulated where hip hop production had been and pointed to where it would head in the future. Along the way, Jay stood at the forefront reminding everybody to “Turn It Up!