Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Modern Drumming
A research based on groove
by
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction 4
• “Funky Drummers” 21
5. Conclusions 39
6. Sources 53
• Bibliography
• Web References
• Discography 55
• Videography
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Introduction
In past few years, I’ve developed a strong interest in hip hop and sample based music.
I’ve started diggin’ into it, through artists like The Roots, Common, Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, A
Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Pete Rock, DJ Premiere and many others; but only one
really aroused a huge interest in me and the willing to discover more about his world and his
way of making music: James Yancee, also known as Jay Dee or J Dilla.
I heard him for the first time four or five years ago, thanks to a dear friend of mine who I
used to hang out with to listen to music after the lessons, and the first track I’ve heard from
him was “So Far To Go”, 6th song of his record The Shining1; and I remember that at the first
play I definitely got crazy by listening this “unknown D’Angelo and Common track”: I was
blown away by the depth and intricacies of what I heard, each piece had both a distinctive
quality, and a personality that showed through and moved beyond the genre.
After that day I’ve started looking for more of his music and then a world opened up: first
all his solo works, then Slum Village, and only in the end I got back to albums I’ve used to
listen like Mama’s Gun by Erykah Badu or Voodoo by D’Angelo, after discovering that he has
been the producer of lots of tracks on these albums. Since then my love for Dilla and his
works is undebatable, and that love made me approach drums in a different way trying to
understand what was that wobbly feel I had while listening to his joints. I think that’s the same
passion for his music that moved and inspired, especially after his passing, lots of
Taking into consideration the huge influence he had over the musicians of the past
particularly in hip hop but also in different music genres I’ve been really influenced from.
I wanted to explain in which way and how, modern drummers got influenced by his works
• Who is J Dilla?
I went through his life and career, to better understand his figure and his art; trying to
define why he is an innovator. I’ve analysed different tracks from him and defined what is a
• What were his influences? What was before him and connected to his music,
drumming wise?
Then I’ve started analysing his influences, going through the funk drummers from the 60s
and 70s, who managed to play with a feel in between straight and shuffled. So I’ve also
transcribed these groove, analysed the audio waveform and converted it in midi to
Moss, Mike Colenburg, Richard Spaven) analysed their grooves, transcribed them and put
the waveform or the midi over a grid to understand where they put the note, the put
My research process was all about listening to a lot of hip hop, nu soul and jazz records,
transcribing grooves and beats and, then, analysing them through Ableton, in order to have
the transients of the hits to get a clearer understanding on the position of the notes within
that particular swing feel he created. I’ve looked for as many different kind of sources: books
about hip hop music, biographies, researches, interviews and articles (in magazines and
dedicated hip hop magazines), watched a lot of lectures and documentaries about him and
his music; and because of a lack of sources on my specific topic, I’ve also interviewed
several drummers and producers who have been influenced by Dilla, like Mark Colenburg,
Robert “Sput” Searight, Richard Spaven, Christian Meyer and Michele Manzo.
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James Dewitt Yancey a.k.a. Jay Dee a.k.a. J Dilla
Known as one of the best and most influential producers in hip hop/soul music, in over 10
material and create a new personal sound that changed hip hop and soul music history
forever.
James Dewitt Yancey was born and raised in the east side of Detroit on February 7th,
1974. He was the eldest of four children (including his sister Martha and two brothers, Earl
and John) and son of a jazz double bass player, vocalist and 25 year recording and
performance veteran (mr. Beverly Yancey) and a classical and opera music enthusiast (mrs.
Maureen “Ma Dukes” Yancey); the music lineage of his family was that strong that is easy to
“Jazz was the music he grew up with and was raised on. Since he was a couple of months
old, he wouldn’t go to sleep unless he heard jazz, so my husband had to sing and play for
Already from his two years old his life was all about music: in an interview for NPR.org, his
mother says that "Dilla's interest in music started at age 2: Dilla carried 45s on his arm and
turntables to the park every day, to spin records — and this was in downtown Detroit." 3. His
first music training came from piano and cello, from singing in the Vernon Chapel AME choir
(his mother sent him to church to keep him out of the harms of the neighbourhood); he
graduated at the Farwell Middle School and then his mother enrolled him at the Davis
Aerospace Technical High School, but his only interested was music4 . In that period (late
80s) he started his first music collaboration with Joseph “AMP” Fiddler, keyboardist and
producer best known for touring with George Clinton & the Funkadelic Parliament, who
welcomed him in his home studio (Camp Amp, at walking distance from Dilla’s house) and
3 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5205096
4 His mother said “He didn’t want to be at Davis, but he was just excellent at physics, so I thought that maybe he would
warm up to it, but he was interested in music. He ended up practically turning Davis into a dance hall, because every
time I turned around he was going to DJ some party.” http://www.j-dilla.com/biography/
6
taught him the art behind of being the desk. He used to spend whole nights in the studio with
Fiddler, learning sampling techniques, getting to know how to work in a studio and, of course,
digging in Amp’s huge vinyl collection. Under his guide, James got really fast and easy how
to use the instrument that became his signature: the sampler and drum machine, Akai MPC.
“He learned the sampler real quick: I showed him how to quantize, how to freak shit, how
to change the time signature, make the feel different, make it fall ahead or behind the beat…
In that period Dilla started to meet new people involved in music that were also regulars at
Camp Amp, such as Ronnie Watts (aka Phat Kat), Humberto Andres Hernandez (aka DJ
Dez) and two of the future members of his first band: R.L. Altaman (T3) and Titus Glover
(Baatin), both rappers, both neighbours and classmates at the Detroit Pershing High School
where Dilla transferred for his senior school year. It’s interesting how the relationship
between the three of them started as a competition for the neighbourhood’s MC supremacy;
at that time T3 and Glover were in a group and Dilla was in another one with one of his
“Jay Dee wanted to challenge us in rapping. He was like, ‘I can beat both of ya’ll.’” 5
But, throughout their many rap battles, all this competition turned into a mutual respect of
their talents, and that brought Dilla to form his first band with Altaman and Baatin: Ssenepod,
that started to get through Detroit’s underground hip hop scene and then changed name in
Slum Village. The music they were making was ground breaking, that’s why R.J. Rice (a
really active person in Detroit’s music scene) didn’t wait so much to let them sign with his
management company; he also gave a studio to Dilla to further his training.6 Even though
now Dilla was under R J’s wing, Fiddler was still willing to help him reaching success and
that’s why, in 1994, he introduced him to Q-Tip, from A Tribe Called Quest, to whom he
showed his Slum Village sound. That’s a turning point for Yancey’s career: under Q-Tip’s
5 Said Glover (aka Baatin, Yancey’s mate in Slum Village) to Reese in 2006.
6 As Fiddler, Rice noticed the incredible talent of J Dilla and wanted to support it as much as possible.
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direction he started doing credited and uncredited work for artists such as Janet Jackson,
Busta Rhymes, De La Soul, and The Pharcyde. But it still was something that kept Dilla
“hidden” behind the desk and the first thing that made him shine as a hip hop young talent,
was the first creation of Slum Village: Fantastic, Vol 1 in 19977; this record set the debut of J
Dilla in the underground hip hop scene of Detroit. The word was spreading all over the place:
hardcore hip-hop fans began to know Dilla for his steady wobble, shuffling hi-hats, oddly
placed handclaps, spacious drum loops with drastically reshaped samples of tracks both
obscure and obvious. Yancey’s reputation among his peers was growing in spades and there
were great work expectations for him; but Slum Village was still a priority for him: in 2000
Fantastic Vol. 2 and Best Kept Secret (credited to J-88, a Slum Village’s pseudonym) came
out really close to each other but with the time he only produced few songs because of his
The 00s were the shiniest part of Yancey’s career, earlier he funded (with Ahmir
hip hop collective that included and produced artists like Common, De La Soul, Erykah Badu,
Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Bilal, James Poyser, and Jill Scott, working on records like D’Angelo’s
“Voodoo”, Badu’s “Mama’s Gun”, Common’s “Like Water for Chocolate” and Talib Kweli’s
“Quality”.
In 2001 he earned two Grammy nominations for Common’s “The Light” (Best Rap Solo
Performance) and Erykah Badu’s “Didn’t Cha Know” (R&B Song of the Year) and he started
officially his solo career by releasing Welcome 2 Detroit 8 in which there’s the single “F The
in 2002 he released another solo work called Ruff Draft EP, published by his own label
(Mummy Records) and distributed by Groove Attack, a german label; in this album compares
for the first time, the name Jaylib in the liner notes, the group that Dilla and Madlib would
7This record was only recorded in between 1996 and 1997 and only published 8 years later. But the Slum Village sound
of Fantastic Vol 1., was nonetheless leaked onto the underground circuit and caused “quite a stir” in 1997. The whole
album was produced by J Dilla.
album in 2003: Champion Sound, the only studio work from this duo. Half of the songs are
produced by Madlib and feature J Dilla on vocals, and the other half are the other way
around.
2003 is a very important year in Yancey’s career: it marks the beginning of his touring
performing career, in fact he had different tours in Europe and USA, but he also got sick: a
trip to the emergency room revealed thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), a rare
blood condition. Despite his condition he kept on producing and later, in 2004, he moved to
Los Angeles9 where he found his roots again (one such effort was his work on mentor Amp
Fiddler’s Waltz of a Ghetto Fly, and another, his interpretation of Jack McDuff’s “Oblighetto”
“The Blue Note remix was something he was proud of. It touched something deep in him
because it was in a different vein, and it was also the music he grew up with [jazz]. It was his
lullaby music as a child when he went to sleep in his nursery, so it meant a great deal to him.
He probably got more out of that than any gold or platinum plaque.” 10
In the same year his health condition got worse and he was also diagnosed with lupus, a
disease that makes the immune system attack healthy tissues; that brought him to a kidneys
failure and, because of that, he had to be under dialysis treatment for two years. Of course is
work output slowed down in this period but in 2005 he worked on Dollar from Steve Spacek
and on Love Is and It’s your world by Common, which are remarkable productions. But even
that didn’t stop him to be close to his fans, producing and touring: for a few weeks from
Rhettmatic, his mother, and friend and confidant Dave “New York” Tobman. Frank-n-Dank,
9He was already collaborating with lots of L.A. producers and artists and he decided to move when he had to work again
with Common.
go and rock in a wheelchair.’ It was like this was going to be the last time for him and his
After this tour he spent his last months producing his last work Donuts, which is “[…]just a
compilation of the stuff I thought was a little too much for the MCs.[…]”12, during one of his
Six months later The Shining was released after final producing from Karriem Higgins.
12 said J Dilla as reported by Alvin Blanco, J Dilla: still Lives Through, Scratch Magazine, May/June 2006
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The Dilla Beats
“The stuff he has done with Badu, Common, Kayne West, Q-Tip, Slum Village, you know,
all his soul stuff, was ground breaking music man! […] His production method, his inner ear
After his death, J Dilla became even more popular and his work started to be so well
considered that he left a true legacy. But what did he exactly do? Let’s go back a little.
Hip hop music evolution happened following the new technologies of each era this genre
went through: everything started with turntables, with their “cuts” and “break” made by
spinning around the cross fader; then drum machines (that started to be used together with
the turntables) and, last but not least, the sampler. This device, with its evolution, changed
“The reason why rap changed its sound so dramatically in the latter half of the ‘80s was
due to the development of relatively low priced digital samplers with enough memory to hold
and loop a few bars of music. By the ‘90s, these samplers could run multiple loops of long or
short sections of music simultaneously, along with drum sound samples and other noises, all
of which could then be saved onto floppy disc to be kept as the producer’s personal library of
signatures. This was a massive progression from Grandmaster Flash cutting up “Adventures
on the Wheels of Steel” in the studio, or Jam Master Jay running one section of Bob James’
The first drum machine/sampler hybrid was the E-Mu SP-1200, released in 1987 by E-Mu
Systems, Inc. it immediately became the Fender Stratocaster (or the Stradivari) of hip hop’s
golden age: the artists could build up the bulk of a song within one piece of portable gear,
13Quote of DJ Spinna from YouTube video J Dilla’s Vynil Collection - Crate Diggers)
14 David Toop, Rap Attack 2, 2 ed. (New York: Serpent’s Tail, 1991), 191
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reduce production costs and increase creativity, by recording and manipulating samples up to
Because of the success of this machine, it didn’t took any longer for other companies to
build their own improved version of the SP-1200, and AKAI, in collaboration with Roger Linn,
jumped in the game with a poker of aces: the MPC60, drum machine and sampler that made
hip hop’s history from its first release in 1988 until nowadays.
“I used the MPC60 on Soul Survivor II. That was kind of the beginning of using it. I thought
it had a thinner sound than the SP, but it had way more sample time—like three minutes. So,
The MPC was really embraced by every hip hop artist because it was like having one
turntable per pad: it is a sampler so, once a sound is sampled, it can be trimmed to various
lengths, chopped up into discrete regions, and/or assigned to any of the sixteen rubber pads
on the front interface for “live” playback, the sample becomes its own instrument. It also has
a built-in sequencer: the user can record and overdub any number of pad performances,
juxtaposing and layering as many tracks as the limited memory (a single 1.44 mb floppy disk)
would allow. This machine also gave producers and artists the chance of directly
assignable to every pad; that also brought to a “re-humanization” of drum machine: hip hop
producers could directly play their beats using non synthesised sounds, adding variations
With the evolution of this machine, came out more and more opportunities, for the artists
and producers, especially talking about sample lengths and layering possibilities (stacking
different samples, one on another, to modify the sound of that sample16). Learning how to
use this new instrument was also really easy but, as Dj Houseshoes says,
Dilla’s MPC skills where out of the world, Phat Kat recalls that Dilla was very fast: “he
would choose a sample from his record collection, put his headphones on, ’chop it‘ onto his
MPC 2000XL, and ten minutes later, the beat would be ready for the rap” (Watts 2014).
But what’s really important about MPC’s birth? It’s for sure the coming back to a
percussive nature for hip hop, particularly in the music making progress; from the turntable to
the pads, from sliding to hitting: that could sound insignificant but it moved hip hop into a
more percussive approach to music that is, without any doubt, what brought J Dilla to build
In fact after his death, the one thing that most people latched onto was his sense of swing,
his funk, the way he drummed: he managed to make the MPC sound human. When you
listen to his beats (of course this perception is certainly subjective) you can feel imperfection
and a “woobly”, odd kind of swing. But how did he managed to do that?
Let’s listen to one of his early works with Slum Village: 1997, Fan-ta-stic Vol. 1 18 was
produced and we already recognise his sound; let’s listen to Fat Cat Song, 5th track of the
album. Since the fill that introduces the groove (min 00.16) we feel something different,
something really strong and tight in his own way that is, at a first listening, really weird. The
groove is jumping, has a percentage of shuffle that’s exactly in between playing straight and
shuffling completely.
To understand this strange wobbly feeling better let’s analyse the beat of another Slum
Village song from their second album Fantastic Vol. 2 (2000): CB4. We are at 94,60 bpm and
the groove is based on a 8th notes hi hat pattern, with back beat on 2 and 4 and kick drum
on the downbeat of 1, downbeat and up beat of 3 and on the last 16th note of 4. The easiest
way to write it down would it be the one shown in Figure 1 (see Fig. 1, next page).
18 This record was produced and recorded in 1997 by J Dilla in his own home studio but was only published in 2005 by
the label Counterflow. It leaked in the underground Detroit hip hop scene straight after it was made and some of these
tracks were re elaborated and used for Slum Village’s second album: Fantastic, Vol. 2 (2000).
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As you can see everything looks “normal” but if we listen to the track we can notice that
this kind of writing doesn’t really correspond to what it is actually played: let’s have a look at
the waveform of this beat, putting it on a 16th notes grid (see Fig. 2).
As we can see in this image, the only hits that are really on the count, are the kick hits on
the 1 and on the 3 and the snare is always slightly before the 2 and 4. The second hi hat
eight note is lightly after the upbeat (so is the kick on the upbeat of 3) and the last kick hit is
really out of the 16th notes grid, being really close to the one of the next measure.
We can take an even clearer example of this “exaggerated” swing from J Dilla’s record
The Shining19, by listening the drum intro of E=MC2 (a track based on a Giorgio Moroder
If we take a look at the waveform of this beat we already notice that some peaks are
19Released by BBE Records after Yancey’s death on August 22, 2006. Discounting the instrumental album Donuts, The
Shining was the first full-length solo release by J Dilla (featuring vocals) five years after Welcome 2 Detroit.
from the record E=MC2 (1979), by Giorgio Moroder italian producer, who was one of the pioneer of electronic based
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music.
14
Figure 4: Mono waveform of E=MC2’s intro beat on a 16th
Using the same grid of 1/16 (the tempo is around 95.65 bpm), we can see how the
transients (audio peaks, highlighted with a yellow mark on the top bar) of the waveform are
not on the count. In the following picture (figure 5) we have a MIDI representation of the beat
that helps us understand the hits position in relation with the count and with them selves.
This groove is the perfect demonstration of a Dilla beat: the hi hat is really swinging, while
keeping a steady rhythm; the snare is always a little bit early on the count and the kick hits
are floating all over the place. That’s one of the most copied and inspiring characteristics of J
Dilla: his interpretation of time, groove and feel; an interpretation that for somebody could
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sound “wobbly” or “unstable” but that “It’s solid… It’s just a feel. If you nod your head to it
then you get it”21, or as Mark Colenburg says “I would describe Dilla’s groove more
But how did he get this solidity, this organic grooves? According to D’Errico, non
quantization and compressors have a key role on the bounciness of this grooves, working on
As he says, compressors “place value on opacity and take up space both visually and
aurally, reflecting the music’s origins as primarily public, collective, and literally loud”23 :
chopping samples leaded to portions of songs that some how where disconnected from each
other and the use of effects like compressors (by boosting its threshold, as well as adjusting
the ratio, attack, and release levels) gave the music his flow and an aggressively dynamic
ebb but also it worked on the feeling of the pulse that we receive. In her book Musical
Rhythm in the Age of Digital Reproduction, Anne Danielsen claims that heavy use of
and dynamic aspects of rhythm”24 and that shapes our perception of the rhythm.
But while compressors work on the dynamic aspect of the groove, the non use (or the
That’s why when we analyze waveforms and beats on a MIDI Clip view over a grid (as we
did in figures 2, 4 and 5) we have hits displaced. And these are only few basic characteristics
of Dilla’s beats; now let’s get into how he manage to create them.
21 As Richard Spaven (Josè James, Flying Lotus) answered me in an interview for this research (2015)
22 Mark Colenburg (Robert Glasper) about describing Dilla’s groove in an interview I’ve done for this research (2015)
23 Mike D’Errico, Behind the Beat: Technical and Practical Aspects of Instrumental Hip-Hop Composition (2011)
24Anne Danielsen, “Chapter 1: Introduction: Rhythm in the Age of Digital Reproduction,” in Musical Rhythm in the Age of
Digital Reproduction (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), 9.
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J Dilla’s influences
As I said, thanks to the invention of machines like the MPCs, sampling from records is,
without any doubt, the most used technique in hip hop music, and it’s a technique that
became known (and popular) after it’s birth. In the beginning of hip hop music all the attention
was on the MC: the lyrics and the rapping were the main subject of the audience, and almost
nobody cared about where the kicks and snare came from, the beats where only a
surrounding for the MCs. The first breakout rap singles were played by session musicians
that were playing original compositions or rearrangements of disco hits (emulating the
popular loops and breaks of the upcoming rap scene) and one of these, who can easily be
awarded as the “father” of sampling, is Larry Smith, session bass player from New York and
Smith had an important role in turning hip hop’s focus into a more percussive melodic
music, rather than melodic; he produced the beat that declared Run-DMC’s success and
that "completely changed hip-hop […] rendering everything that preceded it distinctly old
school with one fell swoop.” 25: “Sucker M.C.’s” (1983). The beat of this song, released on
March 12th, 1983 as B-side of Run-DMC’s single “It’s Like That”, was produced by Larry
Smith just by programming the groove of “Action”, a single of his band Orange Krush, into a
drum machine, that’s why this song (which is basically rap lines over a beat, without any
hook or chorus) became famous also as “Krush Groove 1”. But Smith also started producing
other people and, important to note, it’s the work he did on Whodini’s album Escape (1984)26 ,
After Smith, another guy who made a great change in the history of hip hop music is
Marlon “Marley Marl” Williams: by running a sampler through a drum machine, he changed
completely the way of producing music and sampling of his time allowing the use of pre
25 As Peter Shapiro, music journalist, wrote in his “The rough guide to Hip Hop” p. 327/401 (Rough Guides, 2005)
instruments.
“I was trying to sample a vocal for chorus and the snare came in accidentally. I started
playing the snare along with the track and it made it sound better; it was like: “Do you know
what I mean?, we can take any drum sound off of any record, manipulate it, make our own
That’s an epic change in how hip hop music was made: all the gear limits where
destroyed leaving space only for one, the creativity of the artist. He also gave more light on
the producers’ role making them artists instead of just a name on the records’ credit lists.
After his solo album In Control 28 (which established Marley as an artist and not only as a
producer) producers went also on stage starting to be behind a mic /turntable etc and not
only behind a desk; but soon this new technique started to stagnate and here it comes Pete
Rock, a producer who started finding new sounds not only in funk music but also in all the
other genres. Deeply influenced by the two guys aforementioned, he managed to find his
own way into different music styles, blending them together in a mix of a drum and bass
based music with the use of more instruments, first of all, horns. His bigger contributions to
hip hop music and sampling were removing the wall between the artist and the producer (in
his production we always listen to his voice, that doesn’t act as a main instrument but as a
support for the artist; giving a live impact to the records) and he indirectly established a
sampling aesthetics (in his works he always puts interludes between tracks that are loops of
That’s what Jay said when he met his main inspiration (Pete Rock), after he gave his
demo to Q-Tip. Pete Rock was his idol, and Larry Smith and Marley Marl were Pete Rock’s
idols; it’s easy to understand how these three guys had a really big influence over Jay Dee:
27Marley Marl in a YouTube video, Introducing Marley Marl ! Howd U Get Started Sampling? BtMkRs.Com, posted by J
Diggiti Jul 13, 2007
29 said Pete Rock in an interview by James Fullerton for Attack + Rebuild, Issue 1 (2012)
18
in his production there are lots of recognisable trademarks inspired by these three guys, but
his biggest influence was without any doubt Pete Rock as we can understand by listening to
two elements that has been copied and then made personal by Dilla, the use of “quotation” of
rare jazz and soul records and the displacement of the beat.
But he was an outbreaking man, he broke all the sampling “ethical rules”: he didn’t care of
sampling only from vinyl, he didn’t care of not sampling hip hop records, he didn’t care about
not sampling from a compilation or “staeling” beat from other producers (he took them and
completely changed them); and after him nobody cared about these old rules anymore.
“The biggest thing with Jay was there were no rules, when it started off he used to look for
like a specific line of records but once he broke out of that, that’s when the fuckin’ shit really
got wild”30
Everybody who worked or knew J Dilla, knows that he was always working in his studio,
not always for producing beats to sell but also for practicing (some of them have also been
release by Waajeed’s label Bling47 during 2002 and 2005); he was in a constant challenge
with himself to create new music and sound without caring of any rules, he used to sample
from every kind of physical support, from every record without caring about the genre: his
only rule was “try to make something new and creative”; he also liked to “freak shit that’s
To understand better how he creates his beats, it’s nice to quote a story told by Ahmir
Thompson (aka ?uestlove), during on episode of the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon32, about
Dilla making a beat out of Roy Ayers’ song “Ain’t Got No Time”. After realising that wouldn’t
be possible to loop anything directly from the song, Dilla managed to make one by taking all
the moments in which Ayers is not singing/talking and he samples this one/half second
fragments and glues them together into a fluid loop that would have been the eight bar loop
30DJ HouseShoes in Bling47 Dilla Breaks Edition: House Shoes min 3.01, YouTube video (2012)
31 Liner notes of Welcome 2 Detroit (2001), his first solo album published by BBE
only one of the different techniques he used to create beats, techniques that were against
the hip hop production “ethical rules” but that brought this music to the next level.
“In the beginning of my career, I did a lot of new things. And this guy [Dilla] took it at least
two or three steps higher than me. It was a chain reaction: it was like from Smith to Marley
Marl, from Marley Marl to Pete Rock, from Pete Rock to Jay Dee”34
Song composed in 1999 for the Original SoundTrack of the movie The Hurricane (1999) by Black Star, the rap duo of
33
34As Pete Rock said in the YouTube documentary “J Dilla Still Shining (Part 2 of 4)” by Brian “B. Kyle” Atkins min 8.30
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J Dilla’s Influence on Modern Drumming
In writing this thesis, my goal is to research how Dilla’s work contributed in the developing
of modern drumming language, especially in hip hop but also in other music genres from jazz
to pop music.
“Dilla is a modern genius. Everyone has genius within them, but not everyone, for
whatever reason, manifests it. But Dilla did. He stood for taking a great risk on different
levels, for continuous hard work and for courage. He is a modern genius because he
captured and represented the spirit of a particular time. What he did was so deep that he
influenced a huge amount of modern music. In an age when many of his peers are still more
interested in vanity, Dilla was more interested in exploration through music. And that is why
he is a modern genius” 35
The key to understand his approach, which was revolutionary at that time, is the non
quantization of drums: in an era, after the first computers were born, in which everything was
“loosing humanity” and getting super quantized, he managed to make a machine sound
human.
To get more into this process I’m going to analyse different drummers, beats and records
from the sources Dilla took inspiration, from his own work and from some works that came
after him.
“Some influences… I can say Prince, James Brown, Jet McDuff: these are all people I
“If we speak about the top echelon of drummers who had an influence on hip hop and modern
music, it comes down to a handful of drummers: Idris, Bernard Purdie, Zigaboo from the Meters,
In an article about Dilla in Attack+Rebuild 38, James Fullerton [the author] interviewed
Waajeed (close friend and collaborator of Jay Dee) and he remembers that one day they
spent about one hour listening to the drum break of James Brown’s “Funky Drummer”39 ,
moving the needle back and forth while discussing about Dilla’s theory of non quantization of
the drums. I think that speaking about the influence that the funk/soul drummers had on Dilla
(and on hip hop in general) and analyzing few of them it’s the best starting point to
Funk and soul music has been (and it keeps on being) the most sampled music in hip
hop, since its beginning, and drummers like Clyde Stubblefield and John “Jabo” Starks
(James Brown), Zigaboo Modeliste (The Meters), Bernard Purdie (Aretha Franklin, Marvin
Gaye, Steely Dan, B.B. King) and Idris Muhammad (Curtis Mayfield, Lou Donaldson, John
Scofield, George Benson) have been sampled millions of times and they really changed the
way we play drums today. They were the first musicians that started playing “in between the
cracks” 40, mixing the swing feel (coming from the music they used to listen at that time) and
The first drum groove I’m going to analyze is exactly the one on which, as I said before, J
Dilla and Waajeed spent about an hour: “Funky Drummer” by James Brown.
“We would be in the studio, just sit around, I started with something like that and the bass
player joined in, and the guitar player came in […] We just had a groove and so [James]
37 Vinnie Esparza, San Francisco-based DJ who uses a plethora of soul, jazz, and psychedelic records in his turntablism
38 Issue 1, (2012)
39A song by James Brown (Clyde Stubblefield on drums),recorded in 1969 and released in March 1970 as a part of a
two-part 45 rpm single by King Records.
40 As said by Stanton Moore, former studio drummer and educator, in his drum method Groove Alchemy.
22
Brown come in and says “Let’s make a song out of it” He started singing and we had a song:
This song was recorded on November 20th, 1969 in Cincinnati, Ohio and released in
March 1970 as a two-part single by King Records and it consists of a vamp on which organ
and saxophones play licks and the singing part is just declamatory and encouraging words
for the band members. On call (min 5.19 of the full version recording, available in the
compilation album “In the Jungle Groove”, released in 1986 by Polydor Records) there’s
Clyde’s solo, which an 8-bar drum break that has been sampled by thousands of producers;
Through out the whole song, the groove coined by Stubblefield is a masterpiece: even
though is full of small variations, this groove is based on a 16th notes grid punctuated by the
hi-hat, the first kick hit is on the upbeat of 1 and the snare fills with “what they call ghost
notes” 42 the gaps between the accents. Here’s the drum transcription of the basic groove
As you can see actually the groove seems pretty easy to play, except that it’s really fast
(circa 98 bpm) and tight: the leading voice in this groove is the hi-hat that’s played with
straight sixteenth notes and then we have the movement between kick and snare that gives
the swing to the groove. Let’s take a look at this groove on a 16th notes grid (see fig. 7 next
page).
41Clyde Stubblefield during a clinic in Toronto, Canada (2008) in The Drake Hotel, interviewed by Marley Marl
Source: YouTube video Clyde Stubblefield/ Funky Drummer
It’s clear how the swung notes on this groove are the snare hits and the kicks on 2nd
sixteenth of 2 and 4, while the straight feel is maintained due to the hi-hat and the kick on the
upbeat of 1 and 3. This groove gradually morph during the songs with the addition of different
variations until min 5.19 when it’s transformed into one of the most sampled breaks of music
The feel of this break is incredible, the left hand is going straight with some slight hi-hat
opening that give a swingy feel to the 16th notes, the snare is swinging as it’s clearly audible
24
from the ghost notes, with particular attention to the ruff played in bar four and eight; also the
way in which Clyde accents the snare helps the swinging the feel to come out. This break,
especially the first bars which are without vocals, has been sampled on 1141 songs43 , from
1986 till nowadays: it made the history of sample based music and influenced J Dilla
because he also used it in Slum Village’s production for 2000 Beyond (2010); he also
sampled some vocals from this track that he used for “Shouts”, 10th song of his third solo
Another interesting tune to understand this half way straight and half way shuffle feeling,
is “My Thang” by James Brown45 , a tune that was also sampled by J Dilla in Track 4046.
This groove in the first verse, played by Jimmy Madison, sounds incredibly modern with
the hi-hat played in quarter notes; it’s about 101 bpm and the only thing that swings is the
kick in the double hit resolving on the 3. Following there are the drum notation and the midi
44First released as an EP (Feb 2013), by Mummy Records, in 2007, became J Dilla's largest first-week sales as a solo
artist after being remastered and re-released as his third official solo album by Stones Throw Records.
45Recorded in 1974 and first released as a two-side single and later included into Brown’s 41st album Hell published by
Polydor Records
“Light My Fire”47. This track was also clearly “inspired” by “It’s your thing” by The Isley
Brothers48 , a band that is really close to J Dilla and from which he sampled a lot.
It’s interesting to analyze the groove of “Footsteps In The Dark” 49, another record that has
been sampled quite a lot and that Dilla used for two how his songs: “Bye.” from Donuts and
“Won’t Do” from The Shining; and that’s exactly in this song that he samples the drum intro,
The original groove in The Isley Brothers’ song goes like this:
The original tempo is about 80 bpm, and the leading voice is the hi-hat pattern played with
two hands, techniques that gives a more open feel to the groove, if we listen to Dilla’s “Won’t
Do”, we can really feel the difference between the original and his own interpretation: even
though the groove is straight (except for some kick that are a little laid back), the wobbly
sensation of the “Dilla beat” is given us by the bass line, which push and pulling the groove,
and the sample that starts at 0.0250, that opens up the beat. With this tune we can also
understand how Yancey’s beats weren’t only focus on the drums but also on the melodic and
harmonic side: his goal was incorporate melody and harmony in the beat to have things
There are still two other drummer that, in my opinion, influenced modern drumming and
had a key role on how hip hop music is played now, especially because their grooves have
been sampled a lot; and these two guys are Idris Muhammad and Zigaboo Modeliste.
47 4th song of Donuts (2006), it’s possible to hear the sample at 0.08 (and throughout)
48 Single from the album It’s Our Thing, release in 1969 by T-Neck Label.
49 B-Side of the single “Groove with You” from the album Go For Your Guns, released in 1977 by T-Neck Label
50Sampled from another rare record, Alfie by Dick Hyman (The Age of Electronics, 1969). That reminds us of Pete
Rock’s influence on Jay to put samples from rare records.
26
Zigaboo Modeliste was the drummer of the funk band The Meters and he was one of the
first drummers who started played funk grooves on the hi-hat with two hands and that started
playing linear funk phrases before it became popular in the mid 70s; groove like the “Cissy
Strut”, “Oh, Calcutta!” and “Africa” Idris Muhammad, has been the drummer of so many funk,
jazz and soul artists (just to name a few of them: Lou Donaldson, Curtis Mayfield, George
Benson, Roberta Flack etc). and he could be easily named as the most sampled drummer in
There’s one The Meters’ song that has been covered by Idris Muhammad which is the
best example to show the typical feel of Dilla’s (and, in general, hip hop) music and that
shows how two different drummers had to different version of the same song while keeping a
common feel over it. Let’s start with Zig’s version of “Hey Pocky A-Way”51.
The tempo is set at about 83 bpm, as Play is pushed, the groove starts to surround you:
the 2nd line drumming influences on Zigaboo is super clear. The kick is playing an ostinato
(based on the rhymthic cell 3+3+2) and the hands are playing a single stroke roll accenting
the New Orleans clave. The feel of this groove is really in between straight and swinging
(even though it’s more on the swing side of the “spectrum”) and we can listen this kind of vibe
even more on Idris Muhammad’s version of this song which, in my opinion, is closer to Dilla’s
Figure 13: Drum notation of Idris’ Muhammad groove on “Hey Pocky A-Way”
51From the album Rejuvenation (1974) published by Reprise Records. Fun fact, the front cover displays a couple of
records, amongst them the Allen Toussaint's 1972 album Life, Love and Faith: kind of a blueprint of the hip hop’s crate
digging aestetichs.
27
Idris Muhammad played this song on his record “House of The Rising Sun” 52 , re-
interpreted Zigaboo’s idea by adding his own characteristic touch: the New Orleans feel is
still going on but the voices of the groove are orchestrated in a different way. He spread the
groove on snare, kick and tambourine (or pandeiro, which is a really common instrument in
New Orleans 2nd line drumming) maintaining Zig’s kick ostinato on the tambourine (and, of
course, adding some variations), adding a steady back beat on 2 and 4 and playing some
variations with the kick. This version is played also slightly slower (circa 78 bpm) and the feel
is more in between straight and swing, compared to The Meters’ version; the groove is
always rolling, especially on Idris’ fills, which are simple and “childish” in a way, but extremely
effective.
I would like to close this chapter with a solo that’s really the blueprint of hip hop drumming
and that stated the foundations and the sound of this music: “Fire Eater” by Rusty Bryant53 ,
min 7.51.
52 Recorded in 1975 at Rudy Van Gelder Studios and released in 1976 by Kudu Records
straight, raw funk beat like Bernard Purdie would play it. If you listen to Lou Donaldson’s
Alligator Bogaloo or Mr. Shing-A-Ling, it’s still jazzy and loose, but still in the pocket. There’s
an album called Fire-Eater by Rusty Bryant where, in the title song, they give up a drum solo
to Idris, and he just kills it. He’s just doing his thing, and it practically defines hip-hop
drumming. He sounds like a drum machine. He may not realize it, but those 30 seconds in
that drum solo are like the blueprints of hip-hop in just how fierce and hard the drums are” 54
In conclusion to this chapter I would like to underline the big influence of soul/jazz and
funk music over hip hop and particularly over J Dilla: the drummers treated in this chapter
have been really influential on him, that was the music he grew with and that used to listen
and sample, because we can easily say that everything started there, funk and soul are the
fathers of hip hop music; in these genres there are the roots of the sound that hip hop would
have had from the beginning since nowadays. The power of this music, the energy and, at
the same time, its looseness started with drummers like Clyde Stubblefield, Bernard Purdie,
Zigaboo Modeliste and Idris Muhammad: with their playing in the pocket, they gave to music
soul and feelings that, through sampling, are still alive and mixed with the creativity of other
artists.
54Vinnie Esparza, San Francisco-based DJ who uses a plethora of soul, jazz, and psychedelic records in his turntablism
29
Questlove and the Soulquarians
After talking about Dilla’s influences I would like to start the analysis of his influence over
his contemporary music and the music he produced, to also have a better understanding of
how he influenced the music of today. In the half 90s, hip hop was going towards his funeral
but Dilla’s Slum Village demo was a turning point for hip hop and soul music that, at that
time, reached a point of stagnation. Two guys were really impressed of this new guy:
D’Angelo and Ahmir Thompson (aka Questlove), who loved his approach to music because
they thought it was exactly the same as the one they were using in soul music while working
on D’Angelo’s Voodoo: discovering new sounds and rhythm, to try to get out of the stagnation
This desire for the undiscovered and for the unconventional turned into the birth of The
Soulquarians, a collective based in NYC’s Electric Ladyland Studios (from 1997 till 2001),
and created by D’Angelo, Questlove, James Poyser and J Dilla. Around this core were
orbiting other musicians and producers such as Erykah Badu, Roy Hargrove, Pino Palladino,
Common, Q Tip, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Bilal and many others. With this collective Dilla
produced (or co-produced) some of the most important record in hip hop influenced music
and in neo-soul like D’Angelo’s “Voodoo”, Erykah Badu’s “Mama’s Gun”, The Roots’
In all these records there is a common line based on discovery and experimenting, that’s
the result of all these like minded people working together; in fact Soulquarians’ records
produced in this period, are really similar to each other for aesthetics and vibe and it’s really
clear how the work of Dilla in this period influenced his contemporary drummers, especially
Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson55 who, at that time, was the former drummer and producer of
this collective.
55Born and raised in Philadelphia on January 20th, 1971, he’s the drummer and co-founder of hip hop band The Roots
(and collaborated with many other artists), producer and dj.
30
I would like to start with the analysis of Erykah’s “Didn’t Cha Know” 56, written and
produced together with Jay Dee, it’s (in my opinion) the most “Dilla-ish” song of the whole
record and it’s funny to see how in this case the wobbly feel it’s still in the song even though
As usual it seems a normal groove but how Questlove shuffles the different voices is
really interesting: let’s go deeper by looking at the waveform and the midi roll, see fig 16-17.
Figure 16: Waveform of the first bar of “Didn’t Cha Know” groove
In figure 16 we can notice how the biggest transients, which correspond to kick and snare
hits, are always a little bit early on the count but when we listen to the song we don’t the feel
that he’s pushing the groove because, as we can see in figure 17 (next page), the hi-hat 16th
notes are all swinging and, mostly, late on the count; that shows how the leading voice in this
groove is exactly the hi-hat which has the same feel of the bass line, and that gives us the
56Second tune of “Mama’s Gun”, album recorded at Electric Ladyland Studios through 1999-2000 and released in 2000
by Motown/Puppy Love Records.
31
Figure 17: Ableton MIDI roll of “Didn’t Cha Know” groove
That’s exactly the consequence of Dilla’s production: even though the drum hits are not
precisely on the count, the groove still has its incredible tightness, giving humanity to a genre
Another even clearer example of how the “new Dilla sound” influenced a drummer like
Questlove is in Voodoo57, an album that changed the history of soul and hip hop music, and I
couldn’t find better words to describe if not the ones from the co-producer and drummer of
“(The critics, ndr) noticed that Voodoo was a different kind of proposition, creatively
speaking. Prior to it, hip hop had used the past in a certain way, stacking new sounds on top
of old sounds and generating […] unexpected collisions, and a treatment of existing classics
that was’t quite reverential but at once more analytical and more standoffish. Voodoo did
something different; it connected to the past in a more organic way. […] They heard us
saying that is was a step up from Brown Sugar but they were worried that we were wrong.” 58
He also says that, as a drummer, musician and coproducer, the days he spent working on
I’m going to analyse the groove of two tracks of this record in which, in my opinion, the
influence of J Dilla on Questlove is really clear: “The Root” and “Send It On”.
57D’Angelo’s second studio album, recorded at Electric Ladyland Studios through 1998-1999 and released in 2000 by
Cheeba Sound, Virgin Records.
58As Questlove says in his book Mo’ Meta Blues, pp. 178-179 (Grand Central Publishing, 2015)
32
The first is the 8th song of the album but, to get how Dilla influenced the concept behind
drum grooves, we have to start listening to The Root from the track before, “One Mo’Gin”,
exactly from min 5.34, when the original beat fades into a faster one and changes again, at
min 6.04, into a third beat that changes one more time at the beginning of the next track.
That kind of approach in the production of the song make us understand two thing: how this
new (for that time) music was extremely beat oriented and how the humanization of drums
“I have spent years learning to become a perfect meticulous drum machine, but now I
wanted to go in the direction I thought music was going […] There’s an option on drum
machines that lets you quantize them, program the drum sounds so that they sounds right
[…] Suddenly some artists were switching that off, and their drums would sound strange at
first, but then warmer and better. Real drummers slow down. They speed up. There different
dynamics at different times. Very few artists understood that. […] D’Angelo was willing to be
Looking at the drum notation of this song’s main groove (see fig. 18), the hi-hat is playing
8th notes without accents, the snare is on 2 and 4 and the kick is playing some 16th-based
kick figures.
4
ã4
x x xœ x x x xœ x x x xœ x x x xœ x
. œ œ. œ . œ œ. œ . œ
Drum Set œ. œ œ () ()
Figure 18: Drum notation of “The Roots” groove. The bracket notes
in the second bar are meant to be ghost notes
But even in this case, the beat’s waveform over a 1/16 grid (see fig.19, next page) really
helps to clearly understand where and when Questlove is putting his hits.
59 As Questlove says in his book Mo’ Meta Blues, p. 153 (Grand Central Publishing, 2015)
33
Figure 19: Waveform of "The Root" groove over a 16th notes grid
The biggest transients in the picture are kicks and snare while the smaller ones in
between are the hi-hat hits. Kick and snare are always a little bit before the count, and even
the relation between the kick’s fourth 16th note and the next downbeat, in two bars, it’s
already quite different every time it occurs; also the hi-hat in the first bar is really straight but
then starts to anticipate the count a bit, showing how oscillations of tempo and feel don’t
affect the overall groove, which keeps to be tight due to the strong binding between bass and
drums.
It’s clear how this approach to groove is post-Dilla, for two reasons: compared to the
previous recordings, Quest’s sound is already different and it’s already the sound from which
he’ll be recognized in the years to come, and the “non-quantization” of the drums is really
evident. These are evidences of an evolution from his earlier recordings with The Roots
which, of course are swinging, but not in this particular Dilla-ish way.
“Send It On” is the first ballad of the album (the second one is “Untitled (How Does It
Feel)” which is also the single of this record), a really soul 6/8 ballad which hides distinctive
characteristics of D’Angelo’s new sound and approach to music. It was written after the “re-
invention” of Kool & The Gang’s “Sea of Tranquillity”60 horn riff and there’s a special guest on
60 4th track of first debut studio album from Kool and The Gang, released in 1969 by De-Lite Records.
34
The groove played by Ahmir is a 16th notes-based 6/8 groove which is played in a typical
Dilla way, with oscillation in the hits that are floating over the grid. I’ve analysed an extract of
this groove and, as usual, first the drum notation (see fig. 20) and then a closer look to the
It’s interesting to see his approach to the count, which is different all over the song
(typically Dilla) but that still goes on his track. The hi-hat is the leading voice even in this case
and kick and snare are always a little bit late on the count, to give that sense of opening
which is net contrast with the shuffling feel of the 16ths, which are tight and fast when they
precede the downbeat and really laid back as in the second half of bar three. Important to
notice how even the 16th note that precedes the downbeat is placed in a different place in
that bar and this difference is the reason why it’s impossible to not nod the head while
In the picture above the big transients give a clearer vision of what is going on. Another
example of the influence of Dilla is deductible from the fact that in Questlovle’s playing is full
of empty spaces (usually of half/one bar or so) in place of drum fills; like at min 2.48 where
35
Last but not least, also the approach to sound reflects this new Soulquarian’s way of
making music, for instance the hi-hat is played with the tip and all the groove’s dynamics are
To better understand this change in Questlovle’s way of playing I’m also going to analyse
one song written during the Soulquarians period with his own band The Roots, “You Got Me”
61which has an extremely soulful and hip feel, especially on how he plays the hi-hat.
Even in this case 16th notes are the base to this hip hop groove, the tempo is c. 81 bpm
and the song starts directly with the beat, introduced with a snare hit on the previous beat
It’s full of 16th notes that are played really in between the straight and shuffle feel: starting
from the hi-hat notes which are definitely not straight but always changing their percentage of
shuffling between one notes and another. In the next figure, there’s a clear view of this
distance in the first bar of the groove, thanks to Ableton’s midi roll (see fig. 23).
6115th track of the album “Things Fall Apart”, recorded in 1998 and released in 1999 by MCA Records. Fun fact, this
song was supposed to have Jill Scott on vocals but, for label reasons, she was substituted with Erykah Badu.
36
To a closer look, it’s noticeable how also the kick and snare are displaced and not
precisely on the count but they are always a bit in front, in clear contrast with the hi-hat which
is laid back: that gives a general sense of tightness and looseness to the groove. Important
to see how he also, plays the hi-hat with different small accents that contribute to improve
this wobbly feel which, in the end of the song, is only maintained by the bass and the vocals,
because at min 3.22 Questlove (with a typical old school hip hop style) starts playing a
Last but not least, I’m going to analyse a track of one of The Roots previous albums’
tracks to better evidence how Questlove’s drumming changed after his Soulquarian period,
underlining how he switched from a more “traditional” approach (more linked to the funk guys
Even though it’s hard to choose a track, “Push Up Your Lighter” from Illadelph Life 62 it’s a
great example of the old school hip hop drumming tradition, and it’s also similar to “You Got
Me”, so it’s easier to make a comparison Already from the start, the sound of the drums is
clearly 90ish, it’s trashy and it can be felt that he’s trying to emulate an electronic sound,
especially from the use of dynamics which are the same during the all song.
The shuffle of this groove is really constant all over the song and even though it’s clearly
hip hop, it still doesn’t have that sparkle that the music made after Questlove’s meeting with
Dilla has.
In conclusion to this chapter there’s no need of any other exaplanation that describes
Yancey’s influence on Questlove, if not the one he gave on an interview for XXL Magazine on
62 Which is the third studio album by The Roots, released on September 24, 1996 by Geffen Records.
37
“[…]for what my eyes have seen in those short nine years that I’ve known him, that’s
going to be a very tall order to live up to. It’s [been]…God, six years since he passed [and] I
still use his beats as the energy power pellets to my Pacmanology, if you will.
[Why? Because] I like his kick patches better than anyone; I love his snare patches better
than anyone; I love his sample chops better than anyone; I like his ability to flip samples
better than anyone; I like his engineering better than anyone; I love his chord structure better
than anyone; I love his bass tones better than anyone. It really just starts there. And having
listened to all of his beat creations, and over-analyzed them over a hundred times each,
there’s just an extreme pristine presentation. Even the stuff that you’re lukewarm on as an
63Questlove on a 2012 interview for XXL Magazine, title “Questlove on Why J Dilla Was The Best Rap Producer of All
Time”
38
Contemporary Dilla: Floor to the drummers
To go further into my research on how J Dilla’s music influenced modern drummers, I’m
going to analyse how this happened to some drummer that are, and have been, really
influential to me, like Richard Spaven (Josè James, Flying Lotus), Chris Dave (D’Angelo,
Robert Glasper, Meshell Ndegeocello), Perrin Moss (Hiatus Kaiyote) and Mark Colenburg
Starting with Richard Spaven, drummer and producer from London defined by Blue Note
artist Josè James64 “one of the most unique artist in the world”; I’m going to explain how he
has been influenced by Dilla’s music, by analysing few tracks to understand how his playing
The first track I’m going to analyse is “Angel” by José James65, which is a work that has
The song start with an Hendrix-ish guitar open part and, at min 0.25, it drops into a gritty
Figure 25: Drum notation of “Angel” groove. The notes in parenthesis are optional
The hi-hat feel is typically Dilla, with a huge shuffling which is floating over the grid, the
kick hits are slightly laid back while the snare is usually on the count (during the song,
sometimes, it’s also a little bit late). On the second beat of the groove the last 32nd note on
the hi-hat is played in a resolving way to the next beat: the distance between this note and
the next one is shorter than a “common” 32nd but larger then a grace note’s distance. Also in
this case, to go deeper into the understanding of this groove, Ableton’s midi roll comes to
65 Opening track of the album “While You Were Spleeping”, release in 2014 by Blue Note Records.
66 As Richard Spaven says in an interview I made with him for this research (2015)
39
Figure 26: Midi roll of “Angel” groove over a 1/16 note grid.
After having analysed his way of playing the best evidence of Dilla’s influence on his
playing is, without any doubt, himself answering some questions I’ve asked him during an
interview:
- In which way is your work influenced by J Dilla? As a drummer, how did your
The approach to placement and swing is really different, as a drummer, you have more
Its solid... its just a feel. If you nod your head to it then you get it.
- How do you think J Dilla has inspired beat-makers and musicians in the past
decade?
The swing has become part of drumming language. The same feel is evident in his
rapping... so behind the beat... I don't know that he was the first to do it... but he was
incredible at doing it. Its swing and its gritty, “straight to the cassette” sound are also its more
copied features.
soul, hiphop, future soul, but also in pop and jazz music)?
I think all these scenes benefitted from his influence. Best producer of our time. The way
he used jazz records brought a lot of music to my attention that I wouldn't have heard
otherwise.
40
Another great influence of mine is Perrin Moss, drummer and producer of the Australian
band Hiatus Kaiyote (band nominated for the Grammy Award RnB Best Performance in 2014
and 2016), and I’ve have found several interviews from which I could answer my questions,
- In which way is your work influenced by J Dilla? As a drummer, how did your
Well, when I first heard of Dilla it was with artists such as A Tribe Called Quest, the
Pharcyde, Slum Village, De La Soul. These guys were all my influential hip hop crew growing
up. I never usually took notice to who was producing their tracks, it was only after hearing
“Donuts”67 that I discovered he was THE man. Around this time I wasn’t drumming yet but I
wanted to put a live feel to my productions and I thought… why not? There is no drummer
that can play like a metronome. But really there was, so I decided to pull certain notes back
and forth and not chop the lead sample. I would instead trying to move the time any way I
could fit with the sample’s. This to me was a nice way forward and something different from
- How would you describe J Dilla’s music? How do you think J Dilla has inspired
When he makes a beat, you can bump it in the club, in the car or when you are falling
asleep. I think there’s a little something for everyone to take from Dilla’s collection. J Dilla is
one of the most influential producer of our time, not only to beat makers but also to
composers, drummers, guitarists, bass players, vocalists and MC’s. […] He’s a pioneer, like
67Last Dilla’s studio album, released on February 7, 2006, his 32nd birthday, and only three days before his death by
Stones Throw Records.
68 From an interview in Davide Sciortino’s dissertation “Why Would You Quantize All of This” (2014)
69 From an interview in Davide Sciortino’s dissertation “Why Would You Quantize All of This” (2014)
41
The get further in details I’m going to analyse one of the most famous songs by his band,
“Nakamarra”70, which has really been inspired by Dilla71 and that shows this influence in an
extremely bright way, in the bridge and outdo of the song (min 2.17-2.32 and 3.48-end).
In the following picture, the drum transcription of the groove in the outro of the song min.
It’s interesting to see how a simple groove like this could be played in a completely
different way and feel: Moss shuffles these notes so much, that’s impossible to not nod the
head. Here’s how he actually plays the first bar of this groove in relation to a 1/16th note grid
On paper everything seems out of time, but the energy of this groove, mixed with the
rhythms of the vocals and the bass line, goes over the click, taking back humanity to music
throughout the song, in a typical Dilla style. The hi-hat has a slight accent on the upbeat
But the greatest example that shows how he has been influenced by Jay Dee, in my
opinion, it can be find in “Shaolin Monk Motherfunk”72 , second single of Hiatus Kaiyote’s
70 10th track of Hiatus Kaiyote’s first EP “Tawk Tomahawk”, released in 2013 by Flying Buddah Records.
71 As he says in an interview from Davide Sciortino’s dissertation “Why Would You Quantize All of This” (2014)
722nd track and 2nd single of Hiatus Kaiyote’s album “Choose Your Weapon”, released in 2015 by Flying Buddah
records
42
second album. The song starts with a great synth work, with sounds that make the listener
understand why that “shaolin monk” is in the title; the voice comes in really soaring but really
soon from a mercy beat (with rim-click on every count), the band goes to a swing feel for few
bars to switch again into a reggaeish beat driven by a super shuffled, but wobbly, 16th base
played on a woodblock. All these quotations turn into a Dilla beat (min 4.14) for a couple of
bars introducing the track into an abyss of arpeggiated licks and brooding drums.
This song is full of Dilla’s influences in every field from the arrangement to the production;
from the choice of using a jazz swinging feel (which also sound “old” and vinyl-like,
production-wise) to go to a reggae/second line groove and end the song with a post-rock
sound, passing through a Dilla beat. In all his discography, is clearly audible how his
approach is not only linked to rhythm but also to the research for the perfect sound for every
song/production, in two albums is really possible to feel the evolution and the need for that
The third drummer I’ve managed to interview for this research is Mark Colenburg, actual
drummer for Robert Glasper Experiment, who defines Dilla a genius, because he “always
kept progressing, never settling for what he had done in the past” 73 ; this sentence already
In the next page, some of the questions I’ve asked him for this research.
- In which way is your work influenced by J Dilla? As a drummer, how did your
Even though there's not just one beat that have inspired one of my tracks (because Dilla
has so many amazing ones), you definitely can hear his influence in my tracks and playing.
He influenced me in his creativity: he wasn't afraid to take chances & try new things. As a
approach and interpret feel: he enlightened me on how sound & texture create different feels.
The way I incorporated a lot of the new perspectives I got from Dilla, was to listen to more
music, more intently; in doing that, musicality naturally began to show in my music.
The way I approach making "Beats" is to look at it as making music. Music all starts with
what you think, then hear, and then what can be executed. Thinking that way I have no limits
on the outcome. The ultimate end goal is to have good music, which I think was Dilla's goal
too.
- How do you think J Dilla has inspired beat-makers and musicians in the past
decade and what’s his influence over contemporary music (specifically in nu soul,
I think Dilla inspired musicians & producers to not be afraid to explore music. That
different groove ideas, melody & harmony is ok. Also, that an individual doesn't have to be
labeled as one thing, but rather can be a singer, rapper, instrumentalist, engineer or whatever
to explore art. His influence is heard in how to be simple & yet complex, and how to blend
genres of music together seamlessly. His influence on music abroad could be sum up in how
to be simple & yet complex, and how to blend genres of music together seamlessly.
To get into practical and technical things, I’ve analysed two tracks from Robert Glasper
Experiment’s Black Radio: Vol. 274, a record that has also been a great inspiration for me:
“What Are We Doing” and “Trust”, the first one is interesting because it’s a typical Dilla
groove and the other one has a more straight groove which still has a wobbly feel due to a
particular hi-hat pattern; both songs are also based on small drum loops, that links them to
“What Are We Doing” is the third track of the album, the bpm is 96 and the groove is the
74Sixth studio album from Robert Glasper, released by Blue Note Records in 2013, follow up of the Grammy Award
winner Black Radio, released in 2012
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Figure 29: drum notation of main groove of “What Are We
It is clearly a simple beat, that stays mostly the same through the song, for the exception
of few variations (Colenburg just adds one sixteenth note before the downbeat) but what
makes the difference is in the inner dynamics and the small displacement of the hits.
The audio wave of this groove can help on understanding where the hits stand (see fig.
30).
Figure 30: Audio waveform of “What Are We Doing” groove over a 1/16th
As it’s shown, all the downbeats are a little earlier than the click, and the kick 16th note on
3 is really shuffled towards the 4th count; this alternation of tight and loose gives a feel of
organicity in the groove; in addition to that, the inner dynamics of the hi-hat which is played a
little bit louder when it’s not with any other piece of the drum kit, creates a sort of side chain
compression which makes this groove vibrate even more. Other Dilla influence is audible at
the end of the first chorus (min 1.12) when there’s the typical old school hip hop break that
The other song is “Trust”, 6th song of the same album which an interesting groove in the
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Figure 31: drum notation of groove in the chorus of “Trust”
The missing notes of the hi-hat on the beat, together with the small crescendo in the
group of three 16ths gives laziness to the groove which is in clear contrast with a steady kick
and snare hits that are pushing the groove, especially aided by the really shuffling hits on the
This contrast makes this beat spacey but tight at the same time, fitting perfectly with the
harmonic rhythm of the piano, the bass and all the melodic lines.
“I think a couple of the features that has been copied the most, are how he incorporated
harmony and how some of the elements in some of his beats may lay behind or ahead of the
beat a little.”75
Another great drummer that influenced me is Chris “Daddy” Dave, drummer class ’73 for
Chris Dave & The Drumhedz, Robert Glasper, Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, Josè James and
many others. It’s easy to say that he brought a huge revolution in drumming and I could
easily define him a pioneer and an innovator for hip hop drumming especially because of his
He’s clearly been influenced by Dilla and that’s audible since the first random track from
him; just typing his name on YouTube shows up all videos that includes his signature groove
“a la Dilla”.
I’ve decided to analyse two of his groove: the one on Robert Glasper’s version of “Afro
Blue” and “Trouble” from Josè James; two artist that I really like and that influenced me a lot
“Afro Blue” is a jazz standard recorded by Robert Glasper Experiment of his album Black
Radio76, and features Erykah Badu on vocals. Usually this song is played in 3/4 but Glasper
75 As Mark Colenburg says answering a question for an interview I made for this research (2015)
76 Fifth studio album of Robert Glasper, released in 2012 by Blue Note Records
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arranged it in a really Dillaish way by playing it in 4/4 and having Erykah Badu and Chris
Figure 32: Drum notation of the four bars loop groove of Robert Glasper
After four bars of intro, the groove showed in figure 32 jumps in. The way this groove is
played is extremely recognisable because of Chris Dave’s sound and shuffling: already in the
eight notes there’s a laid back pulse, also given from small accents on the upbeats and on
the non unison eight notes, all the sixteenth notes are shuffle even the sixteenth notes triplet
in bar two there and the use of a tambourine on the hi-hat, which is hearable only when he
accents some hi-hat notes, ensures a wobbly feel to this groove because of its late rebound.
Also the sounds choice from Daddy is really hip, in this tune the snare sounds in between
electronic and acoustic, while the kick is super punchy and has common lines with one of the
most used drum machine ever in hip hop, the Roland 808. In the last two bar the repetition of
a pattern of only two quarters long, let the aware listener understand the influence of based
The other groove is in the third song of “No Beginning No End”77, the beat is around 89
and I really like this groove because it really flows in between waves of laying down and
pushing.
77 Fourth album of Jose James, released on January 22, 2013 by Blue Note Records
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As usual the notes played need to be interpreted and to get what’s happening looking at
the audio waveform over a grid and see the midi roll it’s really helpful (see fig. 34-35).
As it’s clearly visible in figure 35, the main hits of the beat (highlighted with a yellow
marker on the timeline), are always a little bit late on the count, while the hi-hat is really
shuffling, but on a different resolution than the sixteenth notes played by the kick which also
are on a different shuffle feel than the one used for the snare sixteenth notes. The midi roll
helps to have a brighter view over the placement of these notes (see fig. 36, next page).
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Figure 36: midi roll of the first two bars of “Trouble” groove.
The union of different resolutions played all over the place, gives to the groove the Dilla’s
wobbly feel, together with a deep bass line played by Pino Palladino.
“…Probably the most dangerous drummer alive. He is totally reinventing just what you can
do with drums.”78
In conclusion, especially within this four drummer, it’s really obvious how they got
influenced by Dilla’s music and incorporated it in their playing by catching its characteristics,
like a sampling approach to drum sounds (always trying to find different and new sounds),
the un-quantized swing feel and the will of being over the genres and used them all to make
The lack of clear sources and my deep interest for hip hop music in the last years, made
me focus on this research with the purpose of making understandable how a genius like
I’ve figured out that in hip hop and sample based music there aren’t enough sources to
have a clear understanding of Dilla’s approach to drums, that’s why, in three steps, analysing
his beats, his influences and then the grooves that came after him from other drummers, I’ve
found a new way of understanding and explaining this feeling in a more academic way.
In summary I’ve started from his life and career, to get to know his approach to production,
and his evolution through the years, from his first records with Slum Village until Donuts. At
first I’ve analysed his own beats, figuring out a method of comparing drum notation with
waveforms and midi clips on the grid, which helped me to really understand the interpretation
of the notes relative distance, turning out to be extremely clear and useful, especially for
With this method I’ve analysed grooves from the past, from which Dilla was influenced
(and that he also re-invented through sampling), I’ve tried to demonstrate how his feel on
drums had roots in funk and soul, when drummers from the 60s and 70s like Clyde
Stubblefield, Idris Muhammad and Zigaboo Modeliste were playing “in between the cracks”,
in between a completely straight or swing feel being themselves influenced by the music that
After that, I had enough ground to build the answer to my main question:
I think that the best way to understand it is listen to a lot of his music and today’s artists to
pick up the pieces and trying to figure out common lines and factor that lead me to an answer
to my question. By analysing different grooves from the 00s till today, starting with the
comparison method, I’ve shown how it’s clearly evident that drummers in today’s hip hop,
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soul and jazz scene are deeply influenced by Jay Dee’s style because they incorporated it so
The constant research to the best sounds (Dilla used to wrangle split-second clips from
albums just for the timbre of a single note, or the texture of vinyl, or the clack of a snare drum
hit), the un-quantized rhythmic feel and the merging of different genres and influences are
obviously inspired by Jay Dee, and the mindful use of these option, nowadays, is inside most
modern drummers.
All the modern drummers I’ve been speaking about (and unluckily I couldn’t take more, for
space reasons) are always talking about him as a genius and a great music innovator;
Karriem Riggins, friend and collaborator of Yancey, jazz drummer and hip hop producer
defines him “So important” and puts him in the same category of Herbie Hancock, Miles and
all the great jazz innovators; and I have to completely agree with this definition, his genius
made a revolution in hip hop history, which was so big that also came into other genres: he
brought back humanity to hip hop music, and more widely it brought back in music a sense of
spontaneous imperfection which makes his grooves breathing and light, sensations that
collide with the desperate and forced search for perfection of the modern society.
Through this research I’ve developed a new “tool” that helps understanding this approach
to drumming, that still has to be sided with an accurate learning process by ear; because to
really get this kind of music it’s important to listen to it as much as possible, trying to copy
and then absorb it; I’ve also wide my knowledge about where, how and when the hits of the
drum are placed in relation with the count, thanks to the analysis through Ableton, that
helped me to check kick and snare through using audio waveforms and hit hits through midi
conversion.
I also think that there’s still space for further researches which I thought to work on, like
attempt to notate drum parts with a different method that can also suit the common notation;
build a J Dilla library of sounds and sample that could be used as percussion effect with an
hybrid drumming (electronic mixed with acoustic drum kits) approach, that could lead to get
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his layering production skills into a live setting through the use of triggers and other devices.
Another interesting research could be analysing how his technical studio abilities affected the
general sound of the grooves (e.g..: side chain compression) or how to really emulate his
”At home, I have my Rhodes and drum set set up. When my bandmates come over, we’ll
play a Dilla beat for literally an hour, because it feels so good, and that's all that matters to
me. I think that's harder [than playing chord changes]. It takes discipline. He's the producer
that makes you change the way you play. ... When you just play the beat for what it is, the
79 Robert Glasper about J Dilla in an article on npr.com titlte “Why J Dilla May Be Jazz's Latest Great Innovator”.
52
Sources
Bibliography
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Danielsen A., Musical Rhythm in the Age of Digital Reproduction, Chapter 1, 2010
D’Errico M., Behind the beat: technical and practical aspects of instrumental hip-hop
Fullerton J., J Dilla article published on Attack + Rebuild, 2012 Issue 1, California, New
Noise Magazine
Shapiro P., The Rough Guide to Hip Hop, 2001, London, Rough Guides
Sciortino D., Why Would You Quantize All of This?, 2014, BA Thesis, University of London
Thompson A., Mo Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove, 2013, New York,
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Blanco A., J Dilla: still Lives Through, Scratch Magazine, May/June 2006, [Offline] http://
diggersunion.com/enjoy-and-be-educated/j-dilla-still-lives-through-scratch-magazine-
mayjune-2006
Detrick B., THE DIRTY HEARTBEAT OF THE GOLDEN AGE, 2007, [Online] http://
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Fintoni L., Pay Jay in your own way, 2013, PlayGround, [Online], http://
www.playgroundmag.net/articulos/columnas/Pay-Jay-your-own-way_5_1042145783.html
Hood P. & Orr T., Idris Muhammad: A Most Unpredictable Career, Drum! Magazine, 2014,
http://www.drummagazine.com/features/post/idris-muhammad-a-most-unpredictable-
career/P4/
King J., The Time is out of Joint: behind the scenes of D’Angelo’s Voodoo, Slate, 2013
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behind_the_scenes_with_questlove_and_d_angelo_on_voodoo.html
Luta P., On Donuts, sandwiches and beattapes: Listening to J Dilla for six years on, 2014,
[Online] http://soundstudiesblog.com/2012/02/06/on-donuts-sandwiches-and-beattapes-
listening-for-j-dilla/
Russonello G., Why J Dilla May Be Jazz's Latest Great Innovator, NPR Music, 2013,
[Online] http://www.npr.org/sections/ablogsupreme/2013/02/07/171349007/why-j-dilla-may-
be-jazzs-latest-great-innovator
Questlove, Questlove on Why J Dilla was the best rap producer of all time, 2012, XXL
best-rap-producer-of-all-time/
XXL Staff, J Dilla: The lost interview [circa 2004], 2010, XXL Magazine [Online] http://
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www.whosampled.com
www.allmusic.com
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Discography
José James (2014), While You Were Sleeping. Blue Note Records
Meters, The (1974), They All Ask For You / Hey Pocky A-Way. Sansu Records
55
The Roots (2002), Phrenology. MCA Records
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Visual Media
Erykah Badu RedBull Music Academy Lecture, 2011, [Video Online] https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdKJttDTbDA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD1oaBCmZWA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCxVzCe2N1Y
playlist?list=PLUjRLqgT2VpVK9Y5zhaOkF9J85XwTH9vb
J Dilla Carried onto the stage for one of his last performances RIP DILLA!!, [Video Online]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81F2bXuJ_KU
Hip Hop Producer, Rapper Jay Dee AKA J Dilla, NPR Music, 2006 [Online] http://
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5205096
Brian K. Atkins, J Dilla “Still Shining” Documentary, 2006, [Video Online] https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jhxIY3WNw0
Dilla Interview 2003 (part 1,2,3,4 of 4), 2003, [Video Online] https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=YKGm3wc3qOE
v=u4Qinzz9w9w
Fuse TV - J Dilla’s Vynil Collection - Crate Diggers, 2013 [Video Online] https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL3ENrZwjmw
Introducing Marley Marl ! Howd U Get Started Sampling? BtMkRs.Com, 2008, [Video
Online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vof_jmhBSU8
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, “Questlove Explains “Little Brother’s Beat”, 2012, http://
www.hulu.com/watch/315258
57