Illa J (J Dilla's brother) interview

[Elano]

As the brother of one of the greatest musicians in the hip-hop history, Illa J’s career could potentially go one of two ways. The easiest option would be to follow his brother--the late, great J Dilla, if you didn’t already guess (which maybe you should have)--into producing and use Dilla’s style and established name to build his own resume. The other would be to consciously avoid his brother’s long shadow and place himself in a completely different lane where he wouldn’t be constantly judged against Dilla’s considerable achievements.

But like his brother, Illa J doesn’t easily fit into either one of those scenarios. He openly credits the doors Dilla’s name opened for him, but doesn’t show any sense of entitlement for being related to him. He never asked to work with Dilla while he was alive, yet now he finds himself with an unreleased “secret stash” of his brother’s beats that hip-hop heads consider priceless. He writes raps, but his musical background is more that of a songwriter. In summation, the only unequivocal certainty about Illa J is that “J Dilla’s little brother” falls way short of doing justice to his talents.

With the release of his debut album Yancey Boys- -essentially a collabo album comprised of him singing and flowing over the aforementioned stash of unreleased instrumentals --looming on the horizon, Illa J has plenty to be excited about.

OKP: What were your earliest memories of music and growing up with Dilla?

IJ: Well first, we had a really musical family. Music was just always around anyway. Early memories - I remember me and him doing ad-libs, like who could ad-lib the longest, and then singing on some Al Green stuff. After that I just remember hearing him at work in the basement making beats, hearing the bass all day and all night. He was so dedicated to his craft, he was always on it. It just inspired me to step up my level of effort.

OKP: As kids did you guys get along?

IJ: Oh yeah. It was real laid back and nonchalant. A lot of times you have brothers who fight a lot, but it was just everybody was doing their own thing so it was really laid back. I would be in my room writing, my sister would be in her room writing, Jay is downstairs making beats, my parents would be in the living room singing and stuff. Everybody was to their own kind of.

OKP: Do you think it was more growing up in a household that valued music or Jay himself that influenced you to become a musician?

IJ: Honestly it was more of the household, because earlier I didn’t necessarily want to do it because [Jay] had already made a name in doing music. Honestly, it didn’t start with my brother, it started with my mom and my dad. Pretty much when I was born I would be right in the living room while my mom would rehearse with her acapella jazz group. I had my crib right in the room. I wouldn’t say nothing, I wouldn’t interrupt anything, I would just stay quiet while they rehearsed and stuff. That’s kind of how I was brought into the music. It’s just crazy that it’s gotten into hip-hop because I was brought in on jazz and soul and stuff like that.

OKP: When did you realize Dilla was starting to blow up on his own?

IJ: I have memories of sitting at home and watching The Box and I remember watching the “Drop” video for Pharcyde. I was geeking then like ‘My brother did that beat,’ but I had no idea how much his music would impact other musicians and people all around the world. It didn’t hit me really how big he was until I did my first tour in Europe in Spring of 2007. That’s when it really hit me as far as him impact on music. Just the fact that I was in Paris and nobody speaks English and still everybody knows all the words to his songs.

OKP: Had you guys collaborated prior to his death?

IJ: Yeah. I actually did a track with him when I was 13. I was in his basement at one of his cribs and he always had a studio set up and I was at the mic. One of his beats was playing and I just spit this rhyme that was in my notebook and he liked it. That was dope. He sent a limo to take me to the studio, he had the beat already banging when I got there. He was just like “Do your thing.” That was the only song for a long time until I came out to Cali. But actually before he passed, I talked with my brother about doing an album where I would be singing. But I always wrote, I’ve been writing since I was eight, so it eventually turned into songs and little raps and stuff. But the first thing I was gonna do was an album with me singing and him producing. That was the point where I knew I was about to do something in music.

OKP: It sounds like Dilla was the one encouraging you to work with him as opposed to you pushing to work with him...

IJ: I always knew at some point in life music was going to play a part, I just didn’t know when. It’s so much music around me, not just my fam but being in Detroit, I know so many musicians and people who sing and stuff. So as far as who pushed it more, it was just pretty much like, that’s all we did. Music, that’s our thing. That’s all we do. It’s not necessarily that he was pushing more or I was pushing more. It was more a conversation. We’re laid back. Talk it over and hang up [laughs].

OKP: Was there a side of Dilla that you knew that people didn’t really get a chance to see?

IJ: Like all my siblings, he was a real silly dude. Our base is music so we’d make a lot of jokes about music. Even if I was in church, we’d make fun of somebody singing, do an impression of their voice, stuff like that. And Dilla could dance. It’s crazy that I never got a chance to see him do it but I heard he was sweet as hell with the dance shit. He was just a fun dude. In my family, we’re kind of introverts in a sense that we have that silly side that people never see. If you know us well, we open up so you can see the other side.

OKP: As Dilla’s health got worse, did he ever discuss anything with you in terms of what he wanted to happen after his death?

IJ: No, we never discussed that. Even though he was in the hospital for so long, I’ve always been very optimistic. When [he died], it was just kind of like, bam. When we talked he was just concerned like ‘Keep doing your thing.’ At the time I was still in school so he wanted me to keep my grades up. He would just tell me ‘Do you.’

He sent me this bass keyboard that had a lot of crazy sounds. Him and Madlib had one and so he ordered another one for me. He was talking with my brother and Jay said ‘He gonna sing too.” He already knew in a sense...At the end of the day I’m the youngest in the family so everybody is sort of watching over me anyway, probably from observing me, he knew I was gonna go that direction anyway. Probably looking at me like “That was me when I was younger.”

OKP: On your album, you are rapping over unreleased Dilla instrumentals...

IJ: The tracks come from between 1995-98, basically when he was doing the Tribe and [Pharcyde’s] “Runnin’” and stuff. I remember sitting on the couch looking at the “Drop” video, this was like ’95, and the beats he was doing at that time. It was when he was doing a lot of stuff with Delicious Vinyl.

OKP: Was this something that you knew about or was this brought to your attention by someone?

IJ: I heard all different batches of tracks. He would make two CDs and twenty or thirty beats per CD. But these particular tracks I had never heard before. I believe it was Spring of ’07 and me and my girl had just moved into this neighborhood. We ended up finding out that Rick Ross [head of Delicious Vinyl] lived in the same neighborhood. But even then we still didn’t do the album. We met up and he gave me this CD with 38 tracks on it. He wanted me to pick a track or two and try to record on one and see how it sounded. He was planning on doing a compilation album with various artists that my brother worked with over those unreleased tracks from that period.

I hadn’t talked to him for almost a year. When I did it was in January 08, I left him this long voice mail like, ‘you have to hear this song I just wrote on piano.’ In December I went to see Stevie Wonder and that inspired me like crazy. I came back and started teaching myself piano and six days after that I wrote my first song on piano. So we finally met up in the beginning of February, played him that song and after that I had him. He asked me to play some more joints. After that he wanted me to perform at this club called Eighty-Six in Hollywood. He loved the performance, and after that he wanted to do the album.

OKP: How did people respond to you at that performance? Was it a case of trying to grow into your own outside of your brother’s shadow?

IJ: I never look at it like a shadow thing. This is my brother, so I’m embracing it. I’m thankful for having such a great brother because if he didn’t do it, I’m not saying I wouldn’t but by seeing him do it, that inspired me to go do it myself. I got this important figure right here, my brother, next to me, so just to see him use his gift and [see] God work through him and shine his light on all these people. Just seeing it with my own eyes in front of me inspired me, so I don’t look at it that way. I look at it like ‘Thank you for giving me such a great brother’ and I’m grateful and honored to carry his legacy.

OKP: What do you think some of the biggest differences are between you and Dilla musically?

IJ: In a sense, my brother, through his eyes, is a producer. Even when he sings on a track, he would think about it more in a producer sense. I, myself, am more of a songwriter. I’m inspired a lot by melody and stuff like that. I would say I’m a songwriter with the vision of a producer.

OKP: What can people expect from the album?

IJ: People who got the system in the car, man...If you got a good system, it bumps. With the low end, it’s got that bottom that you can feel in your chest. Also, it really has a lot of soul in it. When I wrote to these tracks, it took me back to the days when I was little sitting on the stairs listening to my brother make these beats that ended up getting the whole fam out the hood. It was just so much soul in the tracks. Some people might think it’s easy because some of the tracks are loops so you think it would be easy to write over them. But they’re simple, yet complex. I couldn’t just say anything over them. I had to dig deep to write to those tracks.

OKP: What sorts of things will you be doing after this album?

IJ: I’m putting a band together. As a musician, I came up listening to a lot of musicians and stuff so it’s just a natural thing for me to hear live drums right behind me. It’s not a completely live feel, like overly organic. It’s on the line between organic and synthetic. That’s the direction I’m going for future albums.

- Martin Caballero Illa J’s debut album Yancey Boys on Delicious Vinyl is in stores now. Check out www.myspace.com/illajmusic and deliciousvinyl.com for more information