Illa/Dilla

When word first came that J Dilla's younger brother, Illa J, collected 15 of his older brother's beats for his new album Yancey Boys, I figured it would be a quick "thanks but no thanks." But after a few serious recommendations, and now a few spins, I realize that this album is not your everyday Dilla tribute. This one holds precious weight for a few reasons:

1) Illa had free range on Dilla's old beats from the 90s from Delicious Vinyl, which means a ton of top shelf unreleased Dilla beats you are guaranteed to have never heard before. Nothing recycled here.

2) Illa sounds almost exactly like his brother in voice and flow. This sounds like a brand spankin new Dilla album.

Sounds Like Love is one of the more beautiful unheard Dilla beats, comparable in vibe to his recent joint with Common and D'Angelo So Far To Go. Easily the track of the month. All Good features an unorthodox sampling of Burt Bacharach's The Look of Love.

ILLA J - SOUNDS LIKE LOVE (PROD J DILLA)

ILLA J - ALL GOOD (PROD J DILLA)

Like Cold Grits Without Hot Sauce

New Q-Tip produced by J Dilla off Tip's soon to be released The Renaissance. If Kamaal is going to make a comeback, which honestly no one thinks is possible, this would be the first signs of it.

Video produced by Rik Cordero, whose mediocrity is a mystery in comparison to his growth as the top current hip-hop video producer.

Q-TIP - MOVE (PROD J DILLA)

LTWX RMX

This one is for the beat fanatics.

Some super rare Flying Lotus off the remix EP Shhh!, which Lotus apparently wanted to keep quite with only 500 pressed copies. Included on the album are remixes of J Dilla, Madlib, Timbaland, and RJD2.

This one is a gem of a remix instrumental for the J Dilla / Talib Kweli / Q-Tip masterpiece Lightworking with some dope adlibs from Dilla himself. First person to send me this beat remixed with the vocals from that track gets a surprise gift, which may or not be a punching bag with Sarah Palin's face on it.

FLYING LOTUS - J DILLA LTWX REMIX

Previously:
Talib Kweli & Q-Tip - Lightworking (prod Dilla)

Robert Glasper & Mos Def: Dilla Tribute

Robert Glaser is one of jazz's modern greats. Aside from making a name for himself in the jazz community, he has collaborated with Common, Talib Kweli, Q-Tip, Slum Village, Badu, and Jay-Z.

Glasper's most recent album featured a lengthy jazz interpretation of J Dilla's work, which inspired Mos Def to approach him for a hip-hop meets jazz Dilla tribute at the University of Michigan about a year ago. The result is simply stunning. It is perhaps the best live hip-hop performance I have ever heard, moreover had the patience to listen to front to back.

Standout tracks include The $, and the original version of E=MC2 that we dropped a few weeks ago on you.

MOS DEF & ROBERT GLASPER - LIVE DILLA TRIBUTE

Oxtopus

Basically the way more fresher African version of The Clipse's Grindin. The last track Dilla got on before he passed away, off of the Oxtopus compilation. Rare bird, this one.

J DILLA - OXTOPUS

E=MC Flaco

Summer in the city, and the hip-hop is so goddamn live it's energizing. 2008 is definitely the Invincible Summer.

The sad part is that I am missing all of the classic performances, apparently making deliberate misjudgements of what shows are worthwhile and which are not. I thought Mos was a dead duck in the industry, but he is proving me wrong. Live performances of Jay Electronica tracks, J Dilla tributes...

If you have been living on a different planet and don't have it, here is the original:

J DILLA - E=MC2 FT COMMON

Goings On About Town

Things we like around the internuts this week:

• The Marty McFly Hyperdunk. Grab your hoverboard.
• Phonte of Little Brother drops an 80s tribute album.
• Failed hedge fund agent fakes suicide & midnight runs.
• Cost of the war in Iraq in real time.
• Construction paper sculptures should be in MoMa.
• Every Invincible collabo ever, free.
• J Dilla internet leaks cause his inheritance to suffer.
• PA keeps it ghetto French with wine vending machines.

And She Said...

Perhaps one of the best Pharcyde tracks ever, remixed by the now legend J Dilla. Complete banger to the point that it's maybe as good as the original, which is a miracle. The above video created for this remix, with The Pharcyde in Amsterdam.

More rare remixes coming in the next day or so.

THE PHARCYDE - SHE SAID (J DILLA REMIX)

New Dilla Dawg

Another blazing joint off the new MCA album Pay Jay. Some rare gems on here, though I gotta say I've heard at least half of this before, and I assume a lot of other real heads have too. Other than Trucks, this is the best track on the album.

Dilla even makes some sort of reference to "getting nasty like a storyline on Dawson's Creek" on this track (?!) Dude is bananas.

J DILLA - CREEPIN ON YOU

Pay Jay

Pretty soon the new J Dilla album Pay Jay will be dropping, which was an album recorded in 2002 under contract with MCA. It is an unusual album for Dilla, since he doesn't do any of the beats, but rather has important producers lace the tracks he rhymes over. Included on the boards are Madlib, Pete Rock, Hi-Tek, Supa Dave West, and Kanye West.

The above video a short documentary on the album, though you really don't get much more information than how many blunts were smoked in the studio (46).

I dropped that Trucks jawn on you last week, which is the first precursor to the album other than a new one that recently released produced by Kanye.

UPDATE: Here's the Kanye produced track.

Another new track off Pay Jay here.

J DILLA - PAY JAY (PROD KANYE)

J Dilla - Trucks

Off the new MCA Unreleased J Dilla album. From Gary Numan's classic track Cars. This guy had such a wealth of material we can look forward to hearing more for the next decade.

EDIT - My man Niccolo hit me up with this. Now available below. SO DOPE.

J DILLA - TRUCKS