Dilla, Dilla, Dilla, the word on everyone’s lips, hats and hoodies. Eight years have passed since a heart attack robbed Slum Village (and the world) of arguably the greatest hip-hop producer of all time, James Dewitt Yancey, known on stage as J Dilla, at just 32 years old. A tragedy yes, but when seeing any of the musicians associated with him on stage there’s never a drop of morbidity, only celebration of his illustrious career and warm stories of his personality.

The evening began in an unconventional manner with a lecture, with rapper T3 projecting an image of the E-mu SP-1200 classic drum machine sampler from 1987 onto the rear wall before giving a short talk on its importance during the “hip-hop golden era” from the late 80s up to the mid-90s. By the time I’d gotten myself a drink the history lesson was over and a support act had appeared, a pair by the name of Rushden and Diamonds, both rappers, meaning they were forced to awkwardly self-DJ from a Macbook. It took me a while to work out whether these two middle-aged Canadians wearing huge wrap-around sunglasses were a gimmick or not (somewhere between the Beastie Boys and Flight of the Concords), but with frequent collaborators like Kool Keith and KRS-One these guys were no joke. They opened well and before long the crowd was suitably warmed up.

At about 10 Slum Village appeared the stage to “Fall in Love”, setting the tone for the rest of the night. Their performance was heartfelt and the crowd reacted in kind. Both MCs were witty and even handled a stage invader in good spirits (“Security, can you get somebody’s cousin off stage please”). They seemed to honestly enjoy performing, an unfortunate rarity amongst some acts beyond their era of fame, doing several encores and insisting on taking pictures with the crowd. They finally left the stage at around half 11 to rapturous applause, their charisma, skill and longevity proven comfortably.

Sam Rodgers

photo 1: thelavillaproject.com
photo 2: lineofbestfit.com