Three years after hip-hop producer James Dewitt “J-Dilla” Yancey passed away due to complications from lupus, his posthumous album, Jay Stay Paid, is being released next week on Nature Sounds Records. Last year his younger brother John “Illa J” Yancey recorded and released an album entitledYancey Boys[click to buy] using several of his brother’s unreleased instrumentals. If you were/are a fan of The Pharcyde’s Labcabincalifornia then you’re familiar with the vibe.
Check out our Top 10 J Dilla Beats by clicking here
Illa J appears on “See That Boy Fly” from Jay Stay Paid and spoke with The Urban Daily about building on his brother’s legacy and how he plans to take his career in new directions.
The Urban Daily: What has it been like since Yancey Boys dropped? Has the response been what you expected?
Illa J: When we recorded it, we knew it was the kind of album that would grow on people. It wasn’t necessarily a single driven album. It was for hip-hop heads and fans of my brother that were onto the type of music we were making. Because I’m different from my brother as an artist it attracted folks who liked my style as well. We’ve gotten a lot of positive responses.
Since the instrumental album came out have you heard anything people have done to it?
Not yet, but we did a remix contest and I’m going to do a reverse with the winner. My chorus was still on the track and they added verses to it. It was on 2dopeboyz.com.
You were given 38 Dilla instrumentals to make Yancey Boys. What happened to the ones you didn’t use?
Just still there sittin in the vault.
Any plans to go back and use some of those?
It’s possible if Delicious Vinyl wants to do something but for my next album I’m doing all of the production.
You have some of your brother’s old equipment. His Digidesign board, his mics and his MPC . Have you made any beats using any of it?
I use the Digidesign board and I got my own Motif XS8 and his Moog Voyager. I have a lot of the racks he had hooked up to ProTools to tweak the sounds. As far as the MPC I just let that sit there. It’s almost like it’s retired. That was Dilla’s. I’ve been using this Korg drum machine and a mixture of all my different keyboards. I’ve been producing everything off of that.
How long do you usually spend on a track?
It’s not a set time but sometimes I’ll come downstairs and I ‘ll have drums already set. Even if I have a melody in my head I’ll start with the drums first. In about two or three minutes I’ll have drums laid out and I’ll start playing out the melody. I pretty much write all my songs on piano first then come down to the lab and work on it.
Do you ever go through his record collection and say hey let me sample this…
Sampling is cool, but I did it more in the beginning. When I made my first beats back in ’06 and ’07 before I had all my equipment, all I had was a MPC 2000 and some records. But I play bass guitar and piano so I get a majority of my song ideas from there. I’m more comfortable playing my songs out live.
When will we hear some of your new stuff post Yancey Boys?
I can’t give any clues yet but I’ve reinvented myself in the studio. It’s definitely going in a different direction. I’m excited to see people’s reactions.
What’s been the reaction to your live shows?
One thing I get is people are surprised I can actually sing. The shows are going really good. The only thing is some people only heard certain songs. Nine out of the 12 songs I’m singing, but some people who only heard “Are You Listening” don’t expect me to sing as much as I do. But it’s all good. I like to surprise them.
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