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Black Thought Shares His Personal J Dilla Story

blame it on Meka February 10, 2016
j-dilla-house

If you are both a fan of J Dilla and warm weather, than Miami, Florida was the place to be last weekend’s second annual J Dilla Weekend (February 5th-7th). Many hip hop luminaries – Bun B, 9th Wonder, Rapsody, Jay Electronica, and Ma Dukes among others – were on hand to show their appreciation and love for the influential producer, under the sunshine and palm trees of The Magic City.

Black Thought was also one of the attendees there, performing a “Live Mixtape: Dilla Edition” with J. Period. While there, The Roots member shared an anecdote with Ambrosia For Heads (what up, Jake?!) about his experiences with James Yancey. Thought reveals how he literally scheduled a trip to visit Dilla to grab instrumentals from him for their fourth album Things Fall Apart, as Dilla annually dropped a beat tape at the top of the year. Turns out, he wasn’t the only one who was there for instrumentals either.

That visit, which took place in 1998, would result in two Roots songs: “New Year’s @ Jay Dee” and “Dynamite!” Watch the entire story below.