Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm

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The cocreator and executive producer of the VH1 movie and TV series The Breaks, he lives in Manhattan and teaches at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Here, music is a story of what happens when human and machine times are synthesized into something new.This is the story of a complicated man and his machines; his family, friends, partners, and celebrity collaborators; and his undeniable legacy. The book’s heart is its rich, evocative musicological analysis, complete with rhythm diagrams, of Dilla’s beats… one of the few hip-hop sagas to take the music as seriously as its maker. Equal parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century.

He wasn't known to mainstream audiences, and when he died at age thirty-two, he had never had a pop hit. And he rewinds the histories of American rhythms: from the birth of Motown soul to funk, techno, and disco. Here, music is a story of Black culture in America and of what happens when human and machine times are synthesised into something new. This is the story of the man and his machines, his family, friends, partners, and celebrity collaborators.

His name wasn't known to mainstream audiences, and when he died at the age of thirty-two he had never had a pop hit.