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On February 22nd 2009, Brian Cross aka B+, and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson brought together a 60 piece orchestra to perform a tribute to J Dilla’s music, along with some of his one time collaborators.

J Dilla passed away at the young age of 32 in early 2006 from the rare blood disease Lupus, but not before leaving behind him a legacy in hip hop. He collaborated with pretty much every hip hop artist that springs to mind. The likes of De La Soul, Erykah Badu, Tribe Called Quest, Busta Rhymes & Common all owe James Yancey a debt of gratitude. Listen to any hip hop album since Dilla’s death and you will be hard pushed to find one that doesn’t acknowledge his mammoth contribution to the genre.

Dilla himself was a fully trained cello player, something his mother, Maureen (Ma Dukes), said he found embarrassing as a young kid growing up in the Detroit ghetto, but there is no doubt it helped shape his music. Composer Miguel Attwood-Ferguson describes Dilla as a “modern genius”, and pointed to how he arranged his music. “Dilla loves five-bar loops,” he says. “He loves sevens and elevens as well, but within the phrases of five, he will have different parts of the beat looped in threes, fives and sevens a lot as well”. This according to Attwood-Ferguson, was one of the reasons why Dilla’s music translated so well to a 60 piece orchestra, and another testament to Dilla’s work that he could reach out and touch a classical composer who would usually be found listening to Mozart, Beethoven or Chopin.

The night of the 22nd Feb 2009 was described by Attwood-Ferguson as “magical”, and went on to say that “in age when hip-hop is so frowned upon, an event like this one was just a little indicator that, in fact, it deserves profound respect”. Magical it was too, with performances from Pos from De La Soul and Slum Village among others, along side an emotional Ma Dukes, who herself performs at the start of De La Soul’s ‘Stakes is High’.

Check out the short clip below. It’s a very special tribute to a true hip hop legend. Thankfully Dilla’s influence and musical output was so huge that we are sure to be hearing from him for a long time to come yet.

Happy birthday Mr Yancey…