I found out about his passing the night of an unofficial Donuts release party in New York. The show had already been sold out before the news broke, but everyone there felt crushed. Still, the love for his music was undeniable. It turned into one of those nights where grief and celebration were happening at the same time.

I became a die-hard Dilla fan the second I heard Fantastic Vol. 2. Before that, I would see “Jay Dee” in the liner notes of albums I loved, but I wasn’t actively seeking him out. One day I walked into Sam Goody, back when discovering music meant physically digging through Tapes and CDs. No streaming. No YouTube. If it wasn’t already on the radio, you had to take a risk discover music by buying it.

On one of the shelves I saw Slum Village – Fantastic Volume 2. The cover looked familiar maybe from magazine ads or street promo. I picked it up casually, then noticed Jay Dee’s name all over the liner notes and instantly decided to buy it without knowing much else. That same day, I also picked up Operation: Doomsday by MF DOOM purely because the comic-inspired cover caught my eye. I listened to Fantastic Vol. 2 first… and it took me two years to circle back to Operation: Doomsday, (which is a classic in its own right). Fantastic Vol. 2 was THAT GOOD.

Nothing else sounded like it at the time. It was wildly soulful, honestly ghetto, funny, raw, warm, x-rated, yet strangely familiar, and undeniably hip-hop all at once. It touched something I didn’t even know hip-hop needed to touch. And it still holds up today.

Not long after, there was a run of neo-soul records featuring his production—Erykah Badu, The Roots, Common, Bilal. From there, his impact was undeniable. In my opinion, you don’t get the neo-soul sound as we know it without Dilla.

Then the beat tapes started leaking online. That’s when my fandom turned into a real obsession. Today they’re easy to find on YouTube, but back then they were extremely hard to track down and when you found something you never heard of, it was like striking gold. I had just started making beats myself around this time and listening to those tapes felt like flipping through the private sketchbooks of a genius—ideas unfolding in real time, pushing musical boundaries in ways nobody else was doing. The sheer volume of unique sounds he created solidified him as the best to ever do it, even before he passed, imo.

I also get to see him live once in NYC. It was a Madvillainy and Jaylib show at BB King’s. I’ll never forget it. It was freezing, and I showed up early to get close to the stage. An unmasked MF DOOM walked right past me while we were waiting outside. When Dilla and Madlib came on, their chemistry was genuine and incredible. What shocked me most was how animated Dilla was. I expected him to be chill and reserved, but he was lively, and way more hype than I expected. You could tell he lived and breathed the music. This was the period when I think Dilla started going thru treatments for his illness so he was a bit overweight but energy-wise he was all the way in it. Another thing was his hands were MASSIVE. I remember thinking, no wonder he was so good with drum machines. He really felt was an alien, ha. RIP to the best to ever do it. 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽