He reels off a list ranging from Dylan to Coltrane. “There are some people who channel a deeper, spiritual element through pop music,” Alapatt says on the phone, his enthusiasm palpable from the other side of the Atlantic. Now he’s the Creative Director of Dilla’s estate and determined to carve out a fresh audience for his deceased client and erstwhile friend. His own music, though, made as part of super group Slum Village and later by himself, never made a serious commercial impact, although 2006 record ‘Donuts’ remains a cult classic for real hip-hop heads.Įothen Alapatt was the general manager of J Dilla’s record label, Stones Throw, from 20 – also home to people like MF DOOM. During his lifetime, Dilla – also known as Jay Dee – worked behind the scenes producing big hitters of the day: people like Janet Jackson, A Tribe Called Quest and Pete Rock. Yet for all the adoration and respect from fellow artists, J Dilla has remained something of a cultish proposition, his influence primarily refracted through the music of others instead of directly felt. Tributes over the past decade have come from hip-hop artists like Kendrick Lamar and De La Soul through to jazz pianist Robert Glasper and many, many more besides. Musicians often share a similarly powerful reaction with Flea: Jack Barnett of These New Puritans sometimes wears a “J Dilla Changed My Life” t-shirt on stage, which is also the name of an annual club night in London. Today, ten years after dying of a blood disease, the emotional reverberations from the productions of James Dewitt Yancey are still being felt. “I really love this a lot,” he eventually says, triumphantly, smiling through the tears.įinding any art that touches the soul so deeply is rare enough, but finding hip-hop music that does the same is rarer still. “It touched me so deeply, and I remember I couldn’t stop crying, it was so powerful and like…” He scrunches his eyes tight shut, bows his head and pats the record, hard. It just like…” Tears start welling up in Flea’s eyes as he continues, voice trembling. I had headphones on and I was walking around on this trip through the hills and the mountains. “I listened to this record – this ‘Ruff Draft’ record – when I was in Big Sur by myself. I think he’s an absolutely transcendent, phenomenal musician,” he says, shuffling through some vinyl.Įventually Flea picks out one record in particular. Halfway through, the famous bassist pulls out a clutch of J Dilla records. One recent edition saw an appearance by Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, along with writer Amy-Jo Albany. The premise is pretty straight-forward: each episode, a musician rifles through the racks and chooses some stuff, heads to the till then sits down to explain what they’ve bought – and why.
There’s a great video series on YouTube called What’s in My Bag, produced by legendary Los Angeles record store Amoeba.