Grapthar's Song of the Day: J Dilla - 'E=MC² (feat. Common)'

influence on me, and one of the first artists that really helped me get into hip-hop in a deep way. I had grown up with stuff like the Beastie Boys, but it wasn't until after high school when I really got into hip hop, particularly underground hip hop. J Dilla was the stage name of James Dewitt Yancey, a hip hop producer/rapper whose sound has influenced a countless number of artists in the last two decades. He was a member of the group Slum Village and the Soulquarians, and had a pretty prolific solo career. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2006, before releasing very much of his music. However, almost all of his catalog has been released posthumously, which is miraculous, as it could have all been lost, and would not have had the impact that it has.

world of jazz, specifically in jazz schools. Modern jazz students tend to incorporate a lot of hip hop into their music, and Dilla 'drunk style' is something that has become a meme of sorts. 'Drunk' beats are based around a really laidback style, with the hi-hat and snare hits coming in slightly off from the actual beats. Playing behind the beat is sort of the same idea, though in recent years, 'drunk' beats have been taken to their absolute extreme, where the actual subdivisions are almost entirely lost. Dilla developed this style sort of by accident, as he was chopping up samples and playing them manually on a sampler, so sometimes things would be played slightly off-beat, then looped like that. This song has a bit of that, particularly on the hi-hat hits, and comes from Dilla's 3rd studio album, The Shining, which was also released posthumously. He was working on this album at the time of his death, and it has some of his best songs on it. This track is really interesting, because the beat and bass have an interesting pattern, with an extra 2 beat part added on to each section.