i was reading a piece by the roots' drummer ahmir thompson (questlove) yesterday...

he was talking about reactions to Voodoo, d'angelo's soul masterpiece from 2000.... about how it's kind of a litmus test for how a person feels about music..... he had played it for friends of his & people were just breaking down completely... laughter, tears, the whole deal... because of how it affected them..... quest writes about "Africa," the final song on the album, that it "gives you that sad feeling, cuz you know that's the last song you're gonna hear."

i've been absorbing & reflecting a lot on the music of j dilla, who left the earth last year. i was first consciously aware of dilla's work when Donuts came out, a few days before his death (although i had listened to & loved much of his work & productions for Tribe, Pharcyde, Common, and many others, without knowing who he was).....

Donuts. I hadn't heard anything like it, ever. i quickly gathered everything else i could find.... & when i found the unreleased beat tapes, it was like the beggar who one day opens his pockets to find them overflowing with precious jewels...... the beat tapes are like snowflakes.... just raw creativity, some literally made from a hospital bed, dilla embodying the essence of skillful means & compassionate action in the face of his own mortality..... and listening to them you could be forgiven for thinking that they could go on forever.... there are that many ideas & styles going on. i was overjoyed at the prospect of that much more undiscovered work.

as the obsessive archivist i sometimes am, i sought out all of these tapes..... and although i wished for an endless supply, i knew in the back of my mind that they were finite. the artist who made them had died, and there wasn't going to be anything else quite like it.

i found the last tape today. many of the tracks i had heard before - this one i hadn't:

www.yousendit.com/download/...SWMwTVE9PQ

listening to it now is bittersweet, like much of dilla's late work. i urge y'all to check it out..... give thanks.