LA Weekly-Who’s Biting Dilla’s Beats?
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was working on a story about J Dilla’s legacy and the problems that his estate has had in enforcing copyright law. It’s up and running now for you to scoff derisively at. A follow-up story with Dilla’s family may be in the works, so there may be more layers to this story. Sort of like a seven-layer dip. Nay, exactly like a 7-layer dip.
LA Weekly: Who’s Biting Dilla’s Beats
Download: (I recognize that this is probably some form of low-grade copyright infringement but I think we can all agree that if you don’t know you need to know.)
MP3: The Pharcyde-”Runnin”
MP3: De La Soul-”Stakes is High”
MP3: Common-”EMC2″
MP3: A Tribe Called Quest-”Find a Way”
MP3: Slum Village-”Climax (Girl Shit)”
MP3: J Dilla-”Lightworks”
MP3: Jaylib-”Champion Sound”
Stumble It!
June 23rd, 2008 at 3:57 am
Dudes are lames, how you gonna steal from the deceased. Its one thing to use Dilla’s work as a learning tool. By that I mean studying and appreciating what he brought to the game. How can our art survive if its participants continually disrespect the ground work laid by master artists.
www.marcdollarzmusic.com
“How Hard Is Your Hustle:Vol.I” now available for FREE download for limited time only.
June 23rd, 2008 at 4:19 am
Swimmingly good piece, Weiss.
June 23rd, 2008 at 5:59 am
Dilla, being a Hip Hop dude floated a a lot of CD’s and tapes full of “treats” out to a BUNCH of people. Erykyah Badu found some she’d forgot about on an old hard drive and used them. The ones Jay Electronica used weren’t really long lost but a few of them were unreleased as songs (Donuts and his five beat CD’s that have yet to be released officially though they’ve been promised since 2006).
I thought this article would be about all of the people that bite Dilla’s style and “get away” with it. Trying to keep Dilla’s unreleased music from leaking out to the masses IS an impossible task. The only way to win is to master what you have, make cover art for it, promote it and RELEASE IT! The more you wait the more this type of shit happens.
By the way, the asshole that leaked “Pay Jay” should be assraped by the Devil himself in Hell for 100 years. That was the last proper album of his material left and it looks like it’ll never get released by MCA/Stones Throw now. Houseshoes and Illa J were pissed!
One.
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:45 am
That article is pretty much a wake-up call for music producers to get their business/paperwork in order ASAP with a good lawyer and accountant. Makes me wonder what would happen if Premier or Pete Rock died suddenly.
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:15 am
Mmmmm. 7-layer dip.
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:23 am
Excellent article! Especially ballsy for being like “look, there’s no need to mourn the loss of Stack Bundles quite as much as we did…”. I love the idea of this being the first of a series of articles too.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:41 am
This was a particulary great piece of journalism. Great idea.
Ultimately, I think stopping the leaks of music these days are a futile effort because even if one were to presumably prevent a record from being leaked before it’s release date, as soon as a record becomes available for public consumption somebody is going to rip it and place it on the internet.
Personally, I just ripped like half of Rolling Stones 500 greatest albums this month and those records are on average at least 40 years old. Mick Jagger will not be seeing any of my money, any time soon.