J Dilla dies

Why it matters

James Yancey, who recorded as Jay Dee and J Dilla, died on February 10, 2006, of complications from lupus and TTP. He was 32. He had been ill for at least four years. He died at his mother's home in Los Angeles, three days after the release of Donuts. J Dilla is the producer most other producers will tell you is the one to study. The Pharcyde's Labcabincalifornia (1995), A Tribe Called Quest's Beats, Rhymes and Life (1996), Slum Village's Fantastic, Vol. 2 (2000), and Common's Like Water for Chocolate (2000) are all driven, in significant part, by Dilla's production. The thing he did, technically, that nobody else had quite done in rap was deliberately push the drums slightly off-time, in a way that made the groove feel both behind the beat and ahead of it at the same moment. The technique is now called "Dilla Time" and is the foundation of a whole subsequent school of production. He was 32. He should have had decades. He left behind one of the most influential producer catalogs in modern American music, made mostly inside a hospital.