Sunday night I attended A Suite For Ma Dukes, a tribute to J Dilla featuring a 40-piece orchestra recreating some of Jay Dee’s greatest misses [1]. With my cohorts randomly bailing on me minutes before I took off to the event, I rolled stag to the venue, where the typical “bohemian” crowd clogged the atrium, waxing poetics about Slum Village, trying to impress others with their knowledge of the many obscure samples used in Donuts and other such non sequiturs. I spotted the likes of Blu, Bishop Lamont and J*Davey through the crowds, and was recognized a few times by some of the visitors of this site. I stepped inside the venue to see J Rocc of the Beat Junkies transforming turntablism into works of art, as he spun various Jay Dee instrumentals as well as the original samples.
The show began and I was fortunate enough to land a seat in the fourth row (press passes FTW?), where the orchestra ran through various Dilla compositions, from “Fall In Love” to “Find A Way.” Blame it on the somewhat underwhelming results stemming from the high hopes I had or the fact I hadn’t eaten anything, but I caught myself dozing off due to the sleepy nature of the performances.
During the intermission I ran into the homie shamz as well as U-N-I, where we chopped it up before returning into the venue for second half. The energy had picked up somewhat, as the orchestra had added a drummer, as well as the likes of Dwele and Bilal performing their own Dilla-concocted cuts. The highlight of the night, however, was the final ten minutes of the show, where the orchestra went into “Stakes Is High” (my favorite Dilla production) and Posdunos of De La Soul and Talib Kweli made a surprise appearance, spitting the song’s lyrics. All in all it was a good show, though I wish the vigor of the second half had been throughout the entire night. I did manage to guerrilla-record a few minutes of the show; feel free to check them out.
[1] If you don’t know what I’m refering to with that line, kill your self immediately.
