you're nobody until somebody kills you

i've thought about writing this post before ... even started on it a couple times, but then when i couldn't convey in words what i was feeling/thinking ... delete. if you're reading this, i've done better than my past attempts. or maybe i just failed again, but hey you wouldn't really know if that were the case.

on february 10, 2006, james yancey aka j.dilla aka jay dee died after a long battle with lupus. for those of you that don't know, dilla is/was one of the greatest hip hop producers ever, working with people like slum village, madlib, common, d'angelo, and many many more. amongst people in the music industry, he was one of the most creative producers out there.

but this post isn't necessarily about j.dilla ...

it's about a phenomenon that biggie rapped about and eventually became a part of. "you're nobody till somebody kills you." now don't get me wrong, dilla and biggie were, by no means, small players (literally for biggie) in the rap game ... but both were probably more respected, more notable, more whatever after they died. this is probably more true with dilla than it was with biggie, but i believe it definitely applies to both. then you get people like big pun and big l ... and no disrespect intended, but i don't think either would be as relevant as they are if they hadn't died early in their lives. they were both good mcs, but there's not much that distinguished them from other good mcs ... until they died. on the other side of things, you have jam master jay, who was highly influential as a part of run dmc and rightly respected as so when he died. tupac ... he has sold more since he died than when he was alive ... and oddly, put out more albums posthumously. would i have bought an album like pac's life (which i'm listening to now) if he were still alive? ... probably not. then again, i'd like to think if he were still alive, an album like pac's life never would have been released.

back to j.dilla ... i've always been a fan. slum village has always put out good albums. i love tracks like common's the light, pharcyde's runnin', and a tribe called quest's find a way. though as much as i hate to admit it, my appreciation of his work early on was purely indirect. i loved his work but didn't necessarily always know it was his work. if you had asked me a couple years ago about jay dee, i probably wouldn't have thought much. it wasn't until a couple years ago when he started mc'ing a bit (his fuck the police is an awesome track) and started pairing up with madlib for their jaylib album that i was starting to notice him explicitly. then he passed away, and since then, he's BLOWN UP. everything he touches is golden (though maybe that was also true before). everyone that's into hip hop now knows about dilla.

i just think it's unfortunate that a lot of these guy weren't truly appreciated while they were alive, and they weren't able to receive most of that appreciation within their lifetime. i guess it's true that you don't know what you have until you lose it.

i dunno ... i still don't think i've gotten out completely what i was feeling/thinking ... oh well. what do you guys think?

for some more good free music, check out stonesthrow's latest podcast, which features a j.dilla mix by j-rocc.

... and for all of you in san diego, friday, february 8, 2007 ... kava lounge ... j.dilla tribute party with all proceeds going to the j.dilla foundation, which raises money for lupus research. i'll definitely be there.

RIP J.DILLA!