For some, music is simply a collection of sounds to get through a monotonous day at the office and avoid listening to Janet from Accounting talk about her kid’s dance recital. Or maybe music is background noise at a pretentious coffee shop that is too good for a menu or a cup larger than 12 ounces because it ruins the integrity of the freshly ground beans that came from the intestinal lining of an Indonesian lemur.

But for many, music is an entity that transcends space and time, taking them on journeys that may range from being other-worldly to hitting too damn close to home. Music enhances one’s emotional state and helps define moments in one’s life. Remember that first break up with your girlfriend of two months freshman year of high school and listening to Babyface for three weeks straight thinking you’re never going to be able to move on?

Despite my family never placing an emphasis on music during my childhood, I have distinct memories reinforced by songs and artists. Five-year old Drew would be dancing around the house when papa-dukes played Billy Joel’s “The River of Dreams” on the record player. Man, I thought this was the greatest song to have ever been written. A year or two later, I remember sitting in the living room with a Sony Walkman listening to a cassette for weeks as an angel sang to me how we are champions.

Mama-dukes went out of her way to get me Queen’s Greatest Hits because my favorite movie at the time was D2: The Mighty Ducks (still holds up) and the team sang “We Are the Champions” around a campfire at the end of the movie, which leads into Queen singing the original as the credits rolled. As I continued listening to the different songs on the cassette, “Fat Bottom Girls” became another favorite because as all of my seven-year old readers know, songs about butts are funny.

I remember the first CD I purchased with my own money, the Gorillaz self-titled record. I rode my bike with a few buddies to Sam Goody to get the CD, which was a whopping $20, simply because I was obsessed with their song “Clint Eastwood.” For those who have no idea what I am talking about, Sam Goody was a music store that eventually went out of business when people realized they can store MP3 files on the Interwebs, completely neutering a business predicated on selling CDs.

There are so many other memories I have that are tied with music, yet there is one that has eluded me for almost eight years: what I was doing in earlier February 2006, more precisely February 10th, 2006? The reason I cannot remember this date eleven years ago is because nothing eventful occurred that affected my life. Unbeknownst to me at that moment in time, something did occur; a death of an artist who has impacted my life so greatly for the past eight years. Eleven years ago today the hip-hop community lost one of its most respected and talented musicians, James Yancey, aka Jay Dee/J Dilla.

Dilla isn’t necessarily a household name for many individuals, but for the people who know him and love his music, he is truly beloved. His ability to transform subtle notes and sounds from any musical genre into these simple, yet sublime instrumentals that can only be compared to legends such as DJ Premier, Pete Rock, & Q-Tip. He has produced some of the most iconic songs in hip-hop such as The Pharcyde’s “Runnin’” and De La Soul’s “Stakes is High.”

The closest Dilla was to mainstream success was sharing production credit with Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad under The Ummah for the last 2 A Tribe Called Quest albums (before the comeback in 2016), an uncredited production for Janet Jackson’s Grammy-winning “Got Till It’s Gone,” producing Erykah Badu’s Grammy-nominated “Didn’t Cha Know,” and producing the majority of Common’s Like Water For Chocolate, including the Grammy nominated and one of the most beautiful hip-hop songs “The Light.” That Bobby Caldwell sample still gets me.

What separates Dilla from the rest is his ability to hear a simple melody from a song, maintain the integrity of the sample by not drastically altering it, create a new baseline and drum pattern (sometimes), and all of which would result in an entirely new sound that gives new meaning to the original sample. This “new meaning” can be updating the original sample by bringing it into modernity, as he did with his Jackson 5 “Dancing Machine” sample in the Q-Tip song “Move.” Or it can be this ingenious take on the Gap Mangione classic “Diana in the Autumn Wind” in Slum Village’s “Fall in Love.”

If you go back to the “Runnin’” video earlier in the piece and then listen to “Saudade Vem Correndo” by Stan Getz & Luiz Bonfa, you will notice how Dilla was inspired by this short guitar progression at the 2:03 mark and a saxophone progression at roughly the 2:46 mark. I recommend listening to it in its entirety because it’s a beautiful bossa nova song.

Dilla’s ear for music was mesmerizing. Many people believe that sampling is easy and anyone can pick up an old song and re-purpose it to make a new instrumental. I implore you to give it a try. Anyone can learn G, Em, C, Am, and D in different keys on a guitar (especially with a capo). Try listening to a Miles Davis album and find a section of his music that can be sampled and turned into an entirely new instrumental arrangement. Try recreating Dilla’s “Little Brother” instrumental. And if you do not want to take my word for it, Questlove from The Roots will tell you the same thing.

Artists like Dilla, Madlib, DJ Premier, Pete Rock, and 9th Wonder are doing way more than what Chucky Thompson and Diddy on the “Big Poppa” track. There is an actual skill to sampling.

Jay Dee’s music has a way of affecting your emotions like so many of the greats. His instrumentals have a way of capturing the way you are feeling, acting like a comfort blanket reminding you how everything is going to be alright. Dilla’s music just hits you hard at your core and just affect you in a way that is difficult to describe. Just listen to how Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers describes Dilla’s music:

The way Ruff Draft touches Flea is the same way Dilla’s Donuts touches me. Donuts is the last album Dilla produced before his death. And, as Flea alluded to, Jay Dee worked on the album during an extended stay at the hospital due to complications from thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura.

After listening to this instrumental album and reading up on the story behind its creation, the way I analyze and appreciate music, as well as my outlook on life changed significantly. As a white kid growing up in northeast New Jersey in a working class neighborhood, I was inundated with classic rock staples like Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, Styx, and the likes; jazz and Motown were complete afterthoughts. In order to fit in at school, I listened to the popular artists and songs on the radio like Jay-Z, Nas, 50 Cent, and the Diplomats. Through Dilla’s music, my musical tastes expanded to unimaginable realms, considering my “whatever’s popular on the radio” beginnings.

Dilla introduced me both directly and indirectly to John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Stan Getz, Luiz Bonfa, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Roy Ayers, Gregory Porter, Robert Glasper, and so many others. Sure, I’ve heard of some of these artists since they are staples in American culture, yet without Dilla’s music, I would never go out of my way to listen to the likes of Luiz Bonfa and search for his records at a music store, or became really excited when I found Captain Marvel on vinyl and plays it on repeat for days, or finding What’s Going On? on CD in a sales bin at a Best Buy for $5 and then buys it on 180 gram vinyl 2 years later.

When I listen to Donuts, I hear the story of a man who gave his life to his craft and is ready to embrace a life after death. I hear an artist pouring his soul into one final project that would define his legacy. I hear James Yancey doing what he loved to do; make beats. His instrumentals keep me hopeful and optimistic as I navigate my way through life. They comfort me in times of hardship. Sometimes I fall into a nihilistic mindset when it comes to life, and Dilla’s music prevents me from falling into the dark abyss that is hopelessness. The music is the light that I run to. I can never give up or have anything prevent me from doing the things I love and want to do in life because Jay Dee would not let his sickness prevent him from producing.