Review: Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J. Dilla, The Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm, by Dan Charnas

Abstract

Book Review| March 01 2023 Review: Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J. Dilla, The Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm, by Dan Charnas Dan Charnas. Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J. Dilla, The Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2022. 458 pages. Kellie Hay Kellie Hay Oakland University Kellie Hay is a professor of cultural studies. She examines the ways in which under-resourced communities use cultural forms such as music, dance, and poetry to forge social change. She is particularly interested in the role that affect and aesthetics play in shaping community hip hop. She published Women Rapping Revolution: Hip Hop and Community Building in Detroit (UC Press) with Rebekah Farrugia. She has also published in the Music and Politics, Popular Music and Society, Popular Music Studies, and the Journal of American Culture. Email: hay@oakland.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Email: hay@oakland.edu Journal of Popular Music Studies (2023) 35 (1): 136–138. https://doi.org/10.1525/jpms.2023.35.1.136 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Kellie Hay; Review: Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J. Dilla, The Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm, by Dan Charnas. Journal of Popular Music Studies 1 March 2023; 35 (1): 136–138. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jpms.2023.35.1.136 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of Popular Music Studies Search Dan Charnas has written other important, evocative books about the business of music industries. However, Dilla Time is his magnum opus. Documenting Detroit hip-hop producer James Dewitt Yancy’s (aka Jay Dee and J. Dilla) story, Charnas creates a cyclone of corporal relational tension that is indelibly linked to Dilla’s formation of sonic deconstruction, time feel, and sound sequencing. As whimsical with prose as an emcee is with bars, Charnas wields words in ways that transform readers into visual imagineers. Reading Dilla Time is like watching a documentary in a planetarium-sized space and being late for unexpected sounding beats. The book is organized into 16 chapters that thematize Dilla’s tumultuous musical life. Charnas assigns chapter names, such as “Wrong,” “Straight Time”/“Swing Time,” “Machine Time,” “Sample time,” “Dilla Time,” “Pay Jay,” “Partners,” and “Fragments.” The biographical side of Charnas' prose reads like a page-turning novel, while his richly historicized and highly technical... You do not currently have access to this content.