Pitchfork may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Here, in Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls, her interviews with and observations of fabulous female pop and rock stars, from Tina Turner and Alanis Morrissette to Rihanna, show how these powerhouse women fell in love with music, seized their ambitions, and changed pop culture. The most comprehensive study on music, culture, politics, family, history, and life in general — from a Dilla lens, rooted in Detroit, with global reverberation. If you were a fan of popular music in the 1960s and early '70s, you were a fan of the Wrecking Crew - whether you knew it or not. In this book, readers witness all the masterful attention given to James Yancey’s (Dilla, Jay Dee) humanity and genius.

This is the story of a complicated man and his machines; his family, friends, partners, and celebrity collaborators; and his undeniable legacy. One day, Ali watched James come downstairs, grab a record, and walk to their workstation, his fingers darting over the turntable and the sampler pads in a way that let Ali know James had already found some audio to manipulate and had begun chopping it.Dan drops the science like it’s scalding, and does so in a language that just about anybody can easily understand.

The other was Michael Archer, a twenty-one-year-old pianist, composer, singer, and beatmaker from Virginia whose talents evoked the specter of a young Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and Prince rolled into one. Dan Charnas argues pretty convincingly that Dilla exercised a great deal of control over these rhythms, that nothing about them is accidental. I asked some Twitter friends where the other samples come from, and they responded by gently trolling me.If he sat in the window seat, he might see the silhouette of his old school as he jetted to and from work with the leaders of his new one.

The film has been described as "part biography, part musicology, and part musical meditation, featuring insight from some of the most influential and innovative voices of modern music.The book also debunks the misconception that J Dilla produced his 2006 album Donuts in the hospital, instead explaining that the album was born from an earlier beat tape and edited by Jeff Jank of Stones Throw Records while J Dilla was in the hospital.

From metronomic machines to synthesizers to beat machines, each evolution in machine was complimented by a new musical development: Techno in Detroit forming alongside House (Chicago) and Electro (NYC). From the moment their hugely influential 1978 debut landed, Van Halen set a high bar for the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, creating an entirely new style of post-'60s hard rock and becoming the quintessential rock band of the 1980s. Dilla Time is a different kind of book about music, a visual experience with graphics that build those concepts step by step for fans and novices alike, teaching us to “see” and feel rhythm in a unique and enjoyable way.But the high-flying success was fraught with difficulty, as Eddie struggled with alcohol and drug addiction while simultaneously battling David Lee Roth over the musical direction of the band, eventually taking the band in an entirely new direction with Sammy Hagar and scaling new heights, before that iteration of Van Halen disintegrated. And surviving in New York City in the 1970s and 1980s was no easy task - especially as a young black boy living in some of the city’s most ignored and destitute districts.