Dan Charnas

"Equal parts musicology, biography, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the invention of a new kind of beat by the most underappreciated musical genius of our time"--

The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm

Dilla Time

Daniel Bower

Art is a process, not a product. The full dimensions of a work, even your own, aren’t always apparent on the first viewing or listening. It takes other people’s reactions for you to see it fully.

What hip-hop created, in the late 1980s and early ’90s, was a machine-assisted collage of human music—human sound bounded by the restrictions of computer memory, human time bounded by the restrictions of machine clocks. It turned the entire history of recorded music into a deep well from which a producer/musician could draw material—both the sounds and their timing—into unprecedented combinations and compositions. And

Ragtime roiled white America: young people generally greeted the defiance of rhythmic expectation with surprise and delight; older whites recoiled from the disorder. For the next three decades, ragtime became America’s chief popular music, boosting the growth of the fledgling sheet music and record business.

Syncopation was the ghost of polyrhythm, the spirit of Africa still following its progeny through time and space, through slavery to emancipation and beyond.

Not only a history of hip hop, but a history of Detroit. I've gained so many new connections with the city and culture that I could not have predicted. Beautifully written and extremely informative, yet approachable for readers wether you're into Hip Hop or not.

Kendrick dropped 'GNX' yesterday and this book still somehow covers it lol.

Eric Drake

Not only a history of hip hop, but a history of Detroit. I've gained so many new connections with the city and culture that I could not have predicted. Beautifully written and extremely informative, yet approachable for readers wether you're into Hip Hop or not.

Edit:

Kendrick dropped 'GNX' yesterday and this book still somehow covers it lol.

The best book I’ve read so far this year. 

A meticulously researched and wonderfully composed look at the life of J Dilla, the Detroit based music producer whose contributions to rhythmic style extend far further than I ever realised.

It’s also a history of Detroit, which means the book offers something for fans of Motown and techno, as well as a new those interested in the story of urban American economic decline and renewal.

The best book I’ve read so far this year. 

A meticulously researched and wonderfully composed look at the life of J Dilla, the Detroit based music producer whose contributions to rhythmic style extend far further than I ever realised.

It’s also a history of Detroit, which means the book offers something for fans of Motown and techno, as well as a new those interested in the story of urban American economic decline and renewal.

Strong start to this biography with music theory, historical information of city of Detroit.

Enjoyed some of the biography but there were too many names some stories I thought were unnecessary 

Really enjoyed the musicology that’s the best part of the book. The end tries to tie up various current artists to Dilla i thought could’ve been excluded.

Marion R

Strong start to this biography with music theory, historical information of city of Detroit.

Enjoyed some of the biography but there were too many names some stories I thought were unnecessary 

Really enjoyed the musicology that’s the best part of the book. The end tries to tie up various current artists to Dilla i thought could’ve been excluded.

Overall good but not great 

Vaibhav Yadaram

Steven Ledbetter

It’s Dilla Time. Finally. Dilla Time is the story of the invention of a new kind of time, a new kind of sound. by the most influential music producer of the last 25 years, someone you may never heard of: J. Dilla. He’s revered by rappers and producers from Kanye to Kendrick Lamar, and he worked with the likes of Michael and Janet Jackson––but Dilla himself never rose to mainstream fame, despite revolutionizing the way music sounds before his untimely death at the age of 32. . In Dilla Time, Dan Charnas chronicles the life of J. Dilla, from his gifted childhood in Detroit, to the rare medical condition that caused his tragically premature death. He also records the histories of American rhythms: from the birth of funk and soul in Dilla’s own Motown, to techno and disco. Here, music is a story of Black culture in America and of what happens when human and machine times are synthesized into something totally new. With the help of analysis by musicologist Jeff Peretz, Charnas teaches us to “see” sound differently, giving time itself texture, color, pattern. Dilla’s beats, which, to the untrained ear, sound imprecise and chaotic, were born of the rigorous work ethic of a perfectionist almost spiritually devoted to his music. This is the story of the man, and the machines, that made up a new kind of time. Equal parts musicology, biography, and cultural history, Dilla Timeis a book as delightfully detail-oriented and as vibrantly original as J. Dilla’s music.

Dilla Time The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm

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