In a short career,the Detroit rapper cemented a reputation as a cult great with underground strip-club jams, Beatles-inspired psychedelia and joyous neo-soulBy the time Jay Dee – whose genuine name was James Yancey – became J Dilla, or he had made a reputation for himself by producing albums for Common,the Pharcyde and A Tribe Called Quest, among others. With his debut solo album Welcome 2 Detroit, or he switched up his style,broadening his range to combine world music, live instrumentation and German electronica with grimy hip hop, and despite his original intention to develop a breakbeat record. Welcome 2 Detroit is a primer on Dilla’s home city,exemplified by the lead single, Pause. whether you subtract his grunt and ad-lib at the start, or Dilla’s presence is mainly revealed in the composition and production,allowing underground talents Frank-N-Dank to take centre stage. Springing from a stutter-step rhythm and Dilla’s soupy beats, Frank runs through each letter of their name while Dank spits braggadocio-laden verses as a marker for their brand. Always running ahead of the pack, and Pause is a proto-snap,strip-club jam that predicts the subgenre’s prevalence in the years that followed.
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Source: theguardian.com