James Dewitt Yancey, also known as J Dilla, was a Hip-hop record producer, rapper, and songwriter. Many producers of today’s society consider J Dilla to be one of the most iconic and influential producers of Hip-hop. His sound and his style are quite distinct against other music producers and his sampling technique was one of the most innovative and intricate methods of the Hip-hop world. J Dilla was born in Detroit, rapping and beat-making as a child, forming the rap trio Slum Village with his high school friends. (Charnas, 2022). He would continue to further his knowledge of records and drum machines in which he’d gradually find his sound. I will dive further into J Dilla’s staple sampling techniques used in many of his tracks and I will analyse the track Runnin by the Pharcyde in which he produced.
Yancey’s main piece of equipment was an Akai MPC3000. The MPC3000 is a sequencer and a drum sampler and is the improved version of the Akai MPC60. This was a commonly used staple piece of equipment in any studio producing Hip-hop. This processed most of the percussion, however, J Dilla used this machine for more than percussion.
One technique that J Dilla implemented into his music was the disabling of the quantising button. Essentially, quantising moves the midi data of an instrument to the closest beat. Simply, if a drum beat were to play and the kick drum was either ahead or behind the beat, quantisation would ‘snap’ those kicks into place – creating an ‘on the grid’ feel. This almost felt as if the drum beat was robotic. “The general narrative was that Dilla turned off the quantise function on his MPC to escape the straight 4/4 rhythm.” (Bieschke, 2022). This allowed J Dilla to create a more humanised rhythm to make his music sound more realistic rather than electronic. This would be further implemented to the rest of his productions and is a signature style of Yancey’s.
Another technique that J Dilla was popular for was “micro-chopping”. Micro-chopping was essentially J Dilla chopping up samples and rearranging them on his MPC3000. His meticulous technique however, made his splicing seamless and fluent. A clear example of this is evident in his song Don’t Cry. He takes the sample I Can’t Stand (To See You Cry) by The Escorts and individually ‘chops’ up the kicks and snares with all the background music/melodies behind. This would be rearranged to create a new melodic arrangement. In an interview with Questlove, he describes Yancey’s workflow as “solving a 10000 piece puzzle in record time”.
A lot of the samples were chosen carefully and reflected the themes of his songs. “Dilla is able to ‘speak’ through samples he used and highlight the themes he attempts to portray accordingly” (Diaz, 2018). Sample chopping allowed J Dilla to shift the focus of the instrumentation on particular themes and motifs that he wanted to convey. “Don’t Cry which many believe is a perfect example of Dilla ‘speaking’ through his samples and urging his family, and fans to not mourn his death” (Diaz, 2018).
Runnin’ by The Pharcyde is a Hip-hop track produced by J Dilla. The recurring sample heard in this song is from Saudade Vem Correndo by Stan Getz and Luiz Bonfa. Dilla manipulates this sample by chopping a guitar section and pitching it up by half a semitone. This was again employed with a saxophone sample in the same song. To acquire the bassline, Dilla removed the high end from the saxophone sample so that the low frequencies would pass through. A shaker sound was sampled from Flying Easy by Woody Herman and is pitched down and looped. The drum beat is a standard ‘boom-bap’ hip-hop beat, also implemented with his unquantised rhythms. Furthermore you may hear the vocal chop of the word “run” from RUN DMC’s Rock Box which is repeated throughout the song. This song is a perfect demonstration of J Dilla’s intricate sampling techniques and production methods. Eventually leading to a distinct sound that many producers would recognize and implement into their own music today.
References:
- Bieschke, M. (2022) D is for Dilla: The life and legacy of a hip-hop phenomenon, DJMag.com. Available at: https://djmag.com/features/d-dilla-life-and-legacy-hip-hop-phenomenon#:~:text=It%20was%20the%20Jay%20Dee,the%20straight%204%2F4%20rhythm. (Accessed: December 6, 2022).
- Charnas, D. (2022) Dilla time dives into the life and legacy of a hip-hop genius, Pitchfork. Available at: https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/dilla-time-excerpt-when-j-dilla-met-q-tip/ (Accessed: December 6, 2022).
- Diaz, Z. (2018) Analysis of sampling techniques by J Dilla in donuts, Academia.edu. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/37135825/Analysis_of_Sampling_Techniques_by_J_Dilla_in_Donuts (Accessed: December 6, 2022).