DILLA TIME: THE DILLA EXPERIENCE

TICKETS $45-$85 ($40.50-$76.50 FOR MEMBERS)

Dilla Time: The Dilla Experience with Dan Charnas, Jeff Peretz, and special guest Nate Smith will highlight the life and work of J Dilla, the hip-hop beatmaker who changed the way musicians all over the world play their instruments.

Join Dan Charnas, author of The New York Times bestseller Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm, along with Jeff Peretz, coordinator of the Musicianship & Songwriting area at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, and legendary drummer Nate Smith, for an interactive, multimedia evening of music, ideas, and conversation, including a live drumming demo by Smith.

James Dewitt Yancey, also known as “Jay Dee,” “J. Dilla” or simply “Dilla.” His professional music career was short, spanning a dozen years before his death from a rare blood disease in 2006. But his influence in that period shifted the sound of popular music; and in the decade since the passing of the Detroit-born artist, his ideas have compelled a new generation of musicians — both in the electronic and traditional realms — who have drawn inspiration from Dilla’s music and rhythmic and compositional ideas.

J Dilla was an American record producer and rapper. He emerged during the mid-1990s underground hip hop scene in Detroit, Michigan, as a member of the group Slum Village. He was also a member of the Soulquarians, a musical collective active during the late 1990s and early 2000s. He additionally collaborated with Madlib as Jaylib, releasing the album Champion Sound. His final album was Donuts, which was released days before Yancey’s death. Although his life was short, he is considered one of the most influential producers in hip-hop and popular music. J Dilla’s music raised the artistic level of hip-hop production in Detroit. According to The Guardian, “His affinity for crafting lengthy, melodic loops peppered with breakbeats and vocal samples took instrumental hip-hop into new, more musically complex realms.” In particular, his approach to drum programming, with its loose, or “drunk” style that experimented with non-standard quantization, has been influential on producers and drummers.