Hip Hop

28 Days Of Dilla #23: Jay Dee - Vol. 1: Unreleased

Unheard Dilla beats are things of beauty. Here’s the first volume of some of his unreleased Jay Dee beats.

Jay Dee - Vol. 1: Unreleased

We featured Vol. 2 two weeks ago but today, we’re looking at the first instalment of The Official Jay Dee Instrumental Series to use its official term. While the album was released in 2002, the beats were taken from his Jay Dee days, probably mid to late 90s. It carried the classic early style of soulful drums and deep bass. The album started with Flyyyyy (which later featured on Rebirth of Detroit as “Motor City Twirl”), a brilliant interpolation of a prog rock sample where the “fly” vocal was chopped and repeated to provide a melodic accompaniment.

Busta is a lot less complex, with only drums, a fluid bassline and the occasional organ sample. The mystery behind the name L.L. is still up for debate. Was it for LL Cool J (as it supposedly contained his vocal samples)? Was it for Lonnie Lynn aka Common? Regardless, Dilla made the beat funky as hell and would have been destroyed by either rapper had they jumped on it. Vol. 1 is currently distributed through Waajeed’s Bling 47 but it’s not as available as it used to be. You can try your luck grabbing a copy of it at Discogs.

Jay Dee (aka J.Dilla) Flyyyyyyy
Hi, it's Luke, the editor of Sampleface! Why not subscribe to my Patreon and support the blog?

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