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Part 1: Dan Charnas Author of "Dilla Time: The Life & Afterlife of J Dilla..." Speaks On His Legacy
Feb 18, 2022
Dan Charnas sits down with Sway and Heather to talk about the life of the legend J. Dilla in part one of this interview.
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Part 1: Dan Charnas Author of "Dilla Time: The Life & Afterlife of J Dilla..." Speaks On His Legacy
https://youtu.be/v4d3fKTX-QQ
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0:00
tell you about that voice though that
0:02
voice if you ever read a book
0:04
that's authored by
0:06
daniel charnes if you will aka dan
0:09
charnes
0:10
you could rest assured that any line any
0:13
word that was written in that book was
0:15
meticulously observed put under a
0:18
microscope vetted researched researched
0:21
again triple checked and made sure that
0:24
it was factual it's dan doesn't just
0:26
write books hb he writes bibles and so
0:29
when i found out that he was going to be
0:31
writing this book about jay dillas
0:33
called dillatime the life and afterlife
0:35
of jay dilla the hip-hop producer who
0:38
reinvented rhythm
0:40
i knew that as much as well as i knew
0:43
slum village in j dilla's history that i
0:45
was gonna learn so much more you know
0:48
i'll tell you a quick story jay dilla
0:51
is um i want to say quest love says
0:54
musicians musician musician you know j
0:56
dilla in many cases is uh he's revered
1:00
and loved by people who never even got a
1:02
chance to meet him a lot of posthumous
1:05
music by jay dilla has become classic
1:08
because people just wanted to have an
1:10
opportunity to touch and feel and be in
1:12
his vibe even though he's no longer with
1:14
us in the physical i got a chance to
1:17
meet him in the physical a couple of
1:20
times but really
1:22
when we were doing the world famous wake
1:23
up show we play jay dilla produce music
1:27
all the time it was jay dilla produced
1:29
music that helped shape and mold the
1:32
very core and the sound of what we call
1:34
the wake up show and i say in 2005 first
1:37
time i ever traveled to europe with my
1:39
brother
1:40
uh terry callaway and rich nice we
1:43
traveled to the netherlands we had no
1:45
idea what was going on it was just a
1:47
place we put down on the map and we
1:49
decided to land we just went never been
1:52
to europe and i told my brother i'm
1:53
getting you a ticket and i bought him
1:55
the ticket so he couldn't say no
1:57
and we went out there and we landed and
1:59
we didn't know what we were doing we
2:01
didn't have any friends there and
2:03
lo and behold we're walking the streets
2:05
of amsterdam and we see somebody walking
2:08
across the street and his kid capri
2:10
walking by himself in amsterdam we're
2:12
like kid what are you doing here it blew
2:14
our mind that was like the first day we
2:16
were there and we we knew then we were
2:17
in a special place we went to a club had
2:20
no idea who was going to be there walked
2:22
in this club and we saw the crew frank
2:24
and dank on stage performing i'm like
2:27
frank and dank are here what's going on
2:30
i believe it was dj red matic on the
2:32
turntables if i'm not mistaken
2:34
and they invited us invited us on stage
2:37
my brother t calloway kicked the verse
2:39
rich nice kicked the verse and then they
2:41
said j dilla is in the back sway and he
2:44
want to see you
2:46
i said dylan's here
2:48
all the times we scheduled them to come
2:50
to the wake up show he couldn't make it
2:53
so many times and they said it was
2:54
because of his illness that we thought
2:56
man is jay dilla dissing us
2:59
we couldn't understand why he could
3:01
never make the show and i remember going
3:03
back there and meeting him in person for
3:05
the first time
3:07
and this is in 2005 and the first thing
3:10
we did
3:11
he reached out to me we hugged and dylan
3:14
started crying
3:16
before he said any words to me he
3:18
started crying
3:19
i started crying we were hugging and
3:22
crying in the back of a club in
3:24
amsterdam because that was the first
3:27
time we physically got a chance to see
3:29
each other and say thank you he thanked
3:33
us for all that we did all the music we
3:35
played was in a wheelchair at that time
3:38
i didn't realize that it was that
3:39
serious and i thanked him for all the
3:43
music he orchestrated and through his
3:45
music help us dream bigger you know
3:48
that's the type of guy that man was and
3:51
soon after that just a few months after
3:53
that is when he made his untimely
3:55
transition knew that meeting
3:58
was just rude divine intervention
4:00
it was so
4:02
random that god placed us in that point
4:05
of the world
4:07
on the map that we ended up choosing i
4:09
was there to meet jay diller so when my
4:12
good friend dan charnes
4:14
my good friend dan charles took on the
4:16
task
4:17
to immortalize this man even more and
4:20
tell his true daughter i knew it would
4:22
be done well and so i've been enjoying
4:24
this book i've been enjoying this trip
4:26
down memory lane i've been enjoying this
4:29
trip right now in the present and in the
4:31
future and knowing how much he
4:33
influenced a lot of these newer artists
4:35
whether it's kendrick lamar or robert
4:36
glasper who's a good friend of ours as
4:38
well both for citizens of sway in the
4:40
morning i knew this was going to be a
4:42
gym so i'm calling on all hip-hop heads
4:44
all hip-hop fans we claim we love it if
4:47
you love this culture i want you to call
4:49
up even if you don't know who jay dilla
4:50
is you know his work you may not realize
4:53
it call us up eight eight eight seven
4:56
four two three three four five we got
4:58
the unknown dan charnes is here with us
5:01
today
5:02
and right
5:04
now
5:06
my goodness
5:07
my goodness
5:10
awesome uh that was just think it was
5:11
incredible story sway i was almost in
5:14
tears listening to you and i know what
5:16
you're talking about that final tour
5:18
that he took in november december of
5:20
2005 just a few months before he passed
5:22
just
5:25
bro and i didn't know it was a final i
5:27
didn't know he was gonna even be there
5:29
bro
5:30
yeah i didn't know he's gonna be there
5:31
man and i i told his mom and his brother
5:34
once
5:35
i got to hug that man and when i hugged
5:37
oh
5:39
um yeah
5:40
you know
5:41
man jay dilla round of applause man why
5:43
why when when when did you decide you
5:45
wanted to take on this task this is an
5:47
important book
5:49
um
5:50
well you know it goes back to my own
5:52
time in the music business you know when
5:54
i used to come on the wake up show
5:55
sometimes you know uh and when i worked
5:59
for rick rubin um at american recordings
6:02
i had an artist who i worked with
6:04
incredible emcee heroic mc by the name
6:07
of chino xl
6:09
and you know
6:10
we were working on his second album and
6:12
we finally had a budget to work with the
6:14
best i said let's let's go to detroit
6:16
let's work with this kid jd it's 1999
6:20
right so there's slum village isn't you
6:22
know the album isn't out um
6:25
you know it's it's he's still with the
6:26
uma right but he's done these incredible
6:29
songs like uh
6:31
sometimes remix for brand new heavies
6:33
and people are whispering oh he really
6:35
did that janet jackson song so we flew
6:37
to detroit
6:39
we drove out to conant gardens where he
6:41
lives to his house to the basement knock
6:44
on the white door
6:46
walk in there's my dukes up in the
6:48
kitchen we go down the stairs and
6:51
there's
6:52
common sense what's common sense doing
6:54
down here i couldn't figure out i didn't
6:56
even i hadn't even made the switch to
6:58
common yet like that's how you know and
7:01
i was yeah
7:04
and he was there working on like water
7:05
for chocolate and we had no idea
7:08
so
7:09
you know
7:10
uh we're just hanging out in the
7:13
basement we go to mongolian barbecue
7:15
which was one of james's favorite things
7:18
and what am i doing sway
7:20
i'm talking talking talking you know me
7:22
and gina when we get together we're just
7:23
always a little comedy act right so
7:26
we're talking about how we got kicked
7:27
out of canada the previous night nice
7:29
little story and james is just listening
7:32
nodding listening listening and i'm just
7:35
talking
7:36
i i was so unaware that i was in the
7:38
presence of like a coal train or miles
7:42
type figure that i left my damn camera
7:45
at the hotel sway
7:47
oh i was i was at mongolian barbecue
7:49
with common and jd and chino and my what
7:52
did i take pictures of us at the motown
7:54
museum
7:56
wow you know i just wasn't even
7:59
right i was a talent executive i wasn't
8:01
thinking i was a journalist at that
8:02
point
8:03
and we made the two songs we flew back
8:06
to la
8:07
and then about six months later we're
8:09
mixing the record and i'm listening to
8:12
the you know when you mix stuff you
8:13
listen to it over and over and over
8:15
again right and i'm like wait a minute
8:17
is that
8:18
are those drums
8:19
off
8:21
something's wrong with them drums and
8:23
that
8:24
began the journey to this book like oh i
8:26
didn't realize what he was doing was
8:29
actually a a a a revolution in rhythm
8:32
that you would begin to hear on the work
8:34
of music soul child and talib kwali and
8:38
and and uh and and high tech and
8:41
um jill scott and and then michael
8:44
jackson soon and
8:46
you know as you said robert glasper
8:47
kendrick lamar so the journey began with
8:50
that trip in 99 to detroit
8:53
wow hb
8:54
yeah dan hi how you doing thank you
8:56
hello
8:57
hello
8:58
i missed you i miss you too thank you
9:00
for joining us do you and if you could
9:03
be transparent with this um
9:05
do you fight with yourself or did you
9:07
fight with yourself and approaching this
9:09
saying um can i take this on like why me
9:13
why do i feel
9:14
so compelled to do this this is a
9:17
hip-hop
9:18
producer god pillar icon i don't want
9:21
people coming at me am i touching on the
9:23
right thing should i be the one doing
9:24
this like
9:26
i think a lot of artists
9:28
fight like that they don't always talk
9:30
about it but i think if you're a true
9:31
artist you you can get in your head
9:33
sometimes did you experience that at all
9:35
oh man heather thanks for asking that
9:37
question because it really is true
9:39
and frankly
9:41
it didn't start as the big biography of
9:44
jd it started as
9:46
i was teaching a class at nyu on j dilla
9:49
to 20 students
9:52
and i just realized there wasn't enough
9:54
good
9:55
accurate stuff for them to read about
9:57
his musical achievement i felt like
10:00
nobody had really put their finger on
10:02
what it was that jd did that was so
10:04
revolutionary everybody's always like
10:07
what why jd i don't understand why why
10:09
is everybody so crazy about dilla primo
10:11
is better than him uh you know timbo's
10:14
better than him
10:16
you know my downstairs neighbor is
10:17
operator m's who you know who you know
10:19
back in the day
10:21
formerly known as kingdoms
10:23
that's right so you know i see em's in
10:26
the hallway and he's like what you doing
10:27
i'm like well i'm writing a book on j
10:29
dilla and he goes
10:31
i don't get it
10:33
right that's that's what i'm working
10:36
with right and uh
10:39
that's one of the reasons i decided to
10:41
write a little science book about music
10:44
that's how it started i just wanted
10:45
people to understand what it was that jd
10:48
did and we could talk about that in a
10:49
little bit but the point is
10:52
it started small
10:54
but then people started talking they
10:56
started sharing their stories as a
10:57
journalist you you you gain people's
10:59
trust and i had a relationship with
11:02
maureen
11:03
maureen shared her story and then other
11:06
people started talking and i also had
11:07
the benefit of having been in the
11:09
business having
11:12
many of jd's friends from los angeles
11:14
were my friends
11:16
and then
11:17
i'm married into a michigan family i
11:19
married into a detroit family about nine
11:21
years after i worked with jd so then
11:23
detroit became sort of a familiar ground
11:26
to me and i got to meet his aunties and
11:28
uncles and
11:30
you know beautiful people and got to
11:32
understand how detroit
11:34
has produced all of this incredible
11:36
music over the decades and how it
11:38
produced him
11:39
you know
11:40
uh i say dilla remade rhythm but detroit
11:43
made dylan
11:45
and so both of yeah so both of those
11:47
stories are in this book but thank you
11:50
for asking that question because yeah i
11:52
think if i had thought this was going to
11:54
be as big as it was i wouldn't i would
11:56
like
11:57
dan
11:58
go make another tv show go make another
12:00
breaks
12:02
easier money
12:03
you talk with maureen so you touch base
12:05
with the family about this oh yeah i
12:08
mean i don't think it would have been
12:10
much of biography had the family not
12:14
uh
12:15
been open and it's to their credit that
12:17
they were open and what i tried to do is
12:19
honor their stories i'm a journalist you
12:21
know
12:22
everything i do has to be independent
12:24
and there are reasons for that one of
12:25
the reasons is if you have i interviewed
12:28
200 people for this book sway
12:30
and a lot of those people even people in
12:32
the family
12:33
don't always see the facts the same way
12:36
and so
12:37
i i have to be in a position of
12:39
neutrality but i think that they know
12:42
i'm not a mercenary
12:43
like this is this is not uh a bootleg
12:47
this is not uh you know an infringement
12:49
on anybody's intellectual property it's
12:52
really
12:53
a way
12:54
and i really mean this it's just it's
12:55
about elevating james yancey it's about
12:58
putting his name up with louis armstrong
13:00
and james brown and billy holliday and
13:02
monk and and all those folks and telling
13:04
you why
13:06
you you said uh
13:08
jay dilla we're talking about jay dilla
13:09
and we have dan charnes is with us
13:12
citizens the phone lines have lit up by
13:14
the way uh there's so many people that
13:16
want to talk about dilla the new book is
13:18
dylatine the life and afterlife of jay
13:20
dilla the hip-hop producer who
13:22
reinvented rhythm uh and you said
13:24
detroit invented him and i i find what i
13:27
find interesting about jay dilla is a
13:30
lot of folks will probably categorize
13:33
him as
13:34
you know a kind of bohemian
13:37
type guy right what i mean
13:39
he would
13:41
hold this
13:43
type of approach to music but he um
13:46
detroit
13:47
you know what i mean like a lot of folks
13:49
would look at me
13:51
you know sales really you know a certain
13:53
way put me in a category but i was
13:56
raised in
13:58
oakland curious
13:59
people may have that perception of jay
14:01
dilla but through your experience what
14:04
do you how do you think he saw himself i
14:06
mean did he carry a gun was he street
14:09
savvy you know what i mean how did he
14:11
see himself well if you talk to his
14:13
friends in detroit they'll tell you
14:14
james wasn't the most street savvy but
14:16
you know he did like many young men feel
14:19
like he needed some protection from time
14:21
to come and he was also like many young
14:23
men of color harassed by the police all
14:26
the time
14:27
so
14:27
uh detroit was detroit produces
14:31
lots of different kinds of personalities
14:33
and james was
14:34
was everything like he was you know he
14:37
loved the strip club he loved you know
14:40
chains and he loved fresh clothes and he
14:43
loved great cars and rims and stuff like
14:45
that and that's natural because that's a
14:47
lot of the culture he grew up in but he
14:48
was also a thinker he was also a great
14:51
artist he also appreciated jazz he
14:54
appreciated design like
14:57
he was everything um and so
15:01
i hope that people when people read this
15:03
book they'll see that he was a
15:05
multi-dimensional person very
15:08
interesting person and and had to
15:10
struggle a lot because james a lot of
15:12
people don't know
15:13
especially from listening to him rhyme
15:15
we don't talk about how great an emcee
15:17
he was
15:19
but he was a stutterer
15:20
right so he didn't speak
15:23
easily
15:25
and the words didn't always come easily
15:27
to him
15:28
but his genius came out through his
15:30
music
15:31
okay
15:32
did you ever consider did you were you
15:34
familiar with him at the time you was
15:36
recording music with
15:37
i mean obviously i was familiar with him
15:39
but i never got the opportunity to meet
15:41
him see him in a studio work with him um
15:45
never and it and it's so weird like
15:47
because people always say the hip-hop
15:49
community and the hip-hop family and to
15:52
your point going back to the story that
15:53
you told sway
15:55
you may end up in amsterdam or end up in
15:58
some random before you actually meet
16:00
someone like you know you could be in
16:02
the game nine ten years or never that
16:05
opportunity meet somebody you know it's
16:07
just it's so weird community you think
16:09
small but a lot of artists don't have a
16:12
chance to connect years later years and
16:15
years later it's the strangest thing in
16:17
the world so i was blessed i wasn't
16:19
blessed to have the opportunity to meet
16:21
employment
16:38
you
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