J Dilla: Dillatronic

During his brief lifetime, James "J Dilla" Yancey produced thousands of tracks. As Erykah Badu, who worked with him on her Mama's Gun album, once said during a RBMA lecture, Dilla made "beats all day long." He collected many of them onto CDs, and handed them out to friends and colleagues. These "beat tapes" had begun circulating across the Internet by the time he passed in 2006 at the age of 32.

Dilla's work has since become fodder for dozens of compilations, posthumous "collaborations" like the 2013 album Sunset Blvd. with Frank Nitt and his brother Illa J, and unnecessary reissues like a "badge-shaped" Record Store Day 2015 version of his 2001 12-inch "Fuck the Police". The Yancey estate has also begun issuing his beats in raw form, without vocals. (Before, they were available as "instrumental" accompaniments to projects like Rebirth of Detroit, which paired Dilla's beats with newly recorded vocals by various rappers.) Last year's The King of Beats: Ma Dukes Collector's Box Set boasted some memorable packaging—it included four 10-inch records, a cassette, and a floppy disk formatted for an E-mu SP-1200 sampler keyboard—as well as an imposing $207.74 price tag.

The King of Beats, as well as 2013's Lost Tapes Reels + More, and now Dillatronic are like sketchbooks from a widely recognized master of the art form. On the latter, each track bears the spartan title "Dillatronic 01", et cetera. According to its promotional materials, Dillatronic represents his "electronic-influenced" material, but that's a loose theme at best. There is nothing here as gloriously techno as "Nothing Like This" from the 2003 EP Ruff Draft, or the Kraftwerk homage "B.B.E. (Big Booty Express)" from his 2001 album as Jay Dee, Welcome 2 Detroit. If anything, many of these virtually unnamed and undated "beats batches" float along like the rudimentary, keyboards-and-bass-drums beats of late-'90s indie rap producers like Shawn J. Period and 88-Keys. Most have a running time of around two to three minutes, while a few last less than a minute. Yet in total, they bear traces of his superior instincts.

There are echoes of better-known productions here: the penetrating synth keyboard of "Dillatronic 10" is reminiscent of "E=MC2" from The Shining, and track 35 unfolds a neo-soul guitar groove that evokes his work on Phat Kat's "Dedication to the Suckers". With its enchanting yet disembodied chorus of "ooohs," "14" is like a distant cousin of Slum Village's "Get Dis Money". "29" whips a blaxploitation funk lick around a sample of M.O.P.'s "Ante Up", while a sample of Whodini's "Escape (I Need a Break)" girds the hallucinatory track 34. The latter is one of the more fully realized electronic instrumentals included here, but there are others, like the "Tetris"-like effects on "22", and the ghostly electro on "24" that cruelly ends in 45 seconds.

A few of these files suggest paths unexplored. "05", which only lasts a minute and three seconds, weds a bhangra-like melody to a drum kit. It's an avenue Dilla's close friend Madlib explored more fully on his Beat Konducta in India. "31" builds like a '70s horror cut (or perhaps a porno flick?) around an unnamed woman breathing "No" as a solitary keyboard sound throbs creepily. "33" weaves around a sped-up recording of a voices chirping as if out of The Wizard of Oz.

Dilla's familiar techniques are evident, like his frequent use of air sirens and hard, slapping percussion. He speaks only once, near the end of the minute-and-three-second track "39". "Yeah! Bounce with a nigga!" he commands to us over loping bass and spacey keyboard effects. This might be a data dump of studio experiments, not a cohesive Donuts-like experience that casual listeners might crave. But admirers of this brilliantly inventive musician will find much to rhyme over, get inspired by, or simply bounce to on Dillatronic.