One of the stories I was reminded of was reading one (scored this remix on a cd single last year) of the lists doing the rounds of J-Dilla's greatest songs, as she features in it with this tale:
"It started on a Minneapolis freeway after a Timberwolves game: The veteran producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were leaving the Target Center when a song on the radio, the Brand New Heavies’ “Sometimes” remix, nearly made them veer off the road. Enamored with the Ummah’s halting bounce, the pair spun up “Got ’Til It’s Gone,” a Joni Mitchell–sampling track they would give to Janet Jackson for The Velvet Rope.
"Because the imitation was so brazen—and because “Gone” featured a verse from Q-Tip—there were whispers for years that Dilla had been at least a shadow producer on the track. While the man himself stoked these rumors, they weren’t true; when he did get his hands on Jackson’s vocals, he anchored them to a far heavier low end, for a remix appropriately subtitled “Jay Dee’s Revenge.” Source.
Related - in the Janet doco, Q-Tip talks about how for his first acting gig he got to kiss Janet Jackson (in Poetic Justice). Dude couldn't believe his luck. Tupac seemed pretty pleased too.
Interview by The Ringer's Justin Sayles with Dillatime author Dan Charnas, excerpt:
The creation of Donuts—that it was made on his deathbed—is one of the many myths around Dilla that you tackle and somewhat dispel in the book. Did you go into this thinking it would play out like this?
I actually wanted to confirm some of them. I really wanted to know what happened with “Got ’Til It’s Gone,” and I didn’t know what I was going to find. I didn’t know what I was going to find with Donuts either. I just wanted to talk to people and find the story.
Another one was the story of his father, Beverly Dewitt Yancey—there’s this story all over the internet that he ghost wrote “It’s a Shame” by the Spinners, which was written, at least according to the credits, by Stevie Wonder, Syreeta Wright, and Lee Garrett. And I couldn’t find any confirmation from anyone involved with the record [that Beverly Yancey wrote it].
There’s symmetry there, of course. “Got ’Til It’s Gone” is a very popular Janet Jackson song produced by Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and Alex Richbourg. And the story that they have given is that they made it after listening to a Dilla remix of a Brand New Heavies song called “Sometimes.” The legend around it, though, was that this was actually a Dilla production because it had the hallmarks of a Jay Dee beat. In the book, there appears to be evidence that Dilla himself helped propagate that story, but no evidence they stole credit from him.
Well, let’s just say it this way: Q-Tip is on record in 2009 saying that it is not an Ummah production. Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam are on record. I spoke directly to Alex Richbourg who told me about the entire evening when they first made that track, and I don’t talk about this in the book because this happened after, but I got the multi-tracks too. So, unless Q-Tip, Alex Richbourg, Terry Lewis, and Jimmy Jam are all involved in this very cruel lie, I don’t see the evidence for it. But then there’s the other questions: Why would James tell that tale? And that is, to me, the most interesting story. Why would he say that he did it? And that’s what we get into a little bit in the book.
Was it hard to tell some of these stories like that?
There are people who are very invested in the myths. Do I come out and say, “Damn it, he didn’t do it”? I don’t really phrase it like that, but what I try to do is present the evidence to the reader and let them understand what the stakes are, what the facts are, and just hope people want to live in the reality rather than live in the myth. But again, as you know that’s a big part of Dilla."
There’s symmetry there, of course. “Got ’Til It’s Gone” is a very popular Janet Jackson song produced by Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and Alex Richbourg. And the story that they have given is that they made it after listening to a Dilla remix of a Brand New Heavies song called “Sometimes.” The legend around it, though, was that this was actually a Dilla production because it had the hallmarks of a Jay Dee beat. In the book, there appears to be evidence that Dilla himself helped propagate that story, but no evidence they stole credit from him.
Well, let’s just say it this way: Q-Tip is on record in 2009 saying that it is not an Ummah production. Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam are on record. I spoke directly to Alex Richbourg who told me about the entire evening when they first made that track, and I don’t talk about this in the book because this happened after, but I got the multi-tracks too. So, unless Q-Tip, Alex Richbourg, Terry Lewis, and Jimmy Jam are all involved in this very cruel lie, I don’t see the evidence for it. But then there’s the other questions: Why would James tell that tale? And that is, to me, the most interesting story. Why would he say that he did it? And that’s what we get into a little bit in the book.
Was it hard to tell some of these stories like that?
There are people who are very invested in the myths. Do I come out and say, “Damn it, he didn’t do it”? I don’t really phrase it like that, but what I try to do is present the evidence to the reader and let them understand what the stakes are, what the facts are, and just hope people want to live in the reality rather than live in the myth. But again, as you know that’s a big part of Dilla."
Dillatime by Dan Charnas is out now in all good book sellers. Also check out his last book 'The Big Payback", an insightful look into the history of the business of hiphop.
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