Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm

"James DeWitt Yancey – the Detroit producer who, both as Jay Dee and J Dilla, created an irresistibly destabilized pulse in pop music – was not a man who gave up his secrets easily. So Dilla Time, this magnificent book by veteran hip-hop journalist Dan Charnas, feels a bit like a miracle. It’s not just a deeply revealing portrait of Dilla, who died in 2006, or an exploration of the neo-soul and hip-hop movements that coalesced around him. It’s also a lucid study of the new rhythm science he invented, in language more tactile than technical: an approachable head-nod sort of read."