The question of a supernatural afterlife remains a dubious if not outright unanswerable enigma for us beings of limited powers. If we would put aside such narratives of a divine heaven or cursed hell or even dreams of reincarnation, we might come to acknowledge an infinitely more tangible idea of the eternal afterlife here on earthly soil. The possibility of a resonating memory so essential that we cannot imagine the world without it. Paradoxically, this kind of consonant memory--human and fragile--can take on an absolutely necessary and eternal value for us.
Just consider for instance an artist gifted enough to create beautiful works and pass these animate memories onto us in the form of an aesthetic legacy. Such a legacy shapes our understanding of not only art but the sense of meaningfulness that orients our lives. A number of the more introspective artistic types--confronting their own inevitable deaths (despite whatever beliefs they might hold about a supernatural realm)--become intrigued if not obsessed by the possibility of such a legacy. Wracked by inner conflict, they grapple with the notion that the lifespan of sublime artwork outlasts that of the progenitor.
In recent memory, a young musician by the name of J Dilla (born James D. Yancey) reflected on the afterlife of his art in the 2006 release of his provocative and brilliant soundscape, Donuts (Stones Throw Records), just days before his untimely passing. Dilla's production submerges the listener deep into his idiosyncratic brand of soulful frequency and lush rhythms. His sonic universe provokes and inspires, lingering in the crevices of our imagination. As a voracious flood of tribute albums, songs and articles continue to praise the life and music of Yancey (this one included), there is no doubt that his music is transforming into just this kind of aesthetic legacy.
While struggling to survive in a hospital bed in late 2005 and the twilight months of 2006 with the debilitating immune condition, lupus, J Dilla gathered the courage to release his most captivating effort. In a story that has become almost mythical in proportion, he worked bedside with musical equipment brought by his mother, known intimately to Dilla as Ma Dukes. Each of the 31 tracks he completed do not last much longer than a minute reflecting Yancey's failing endurance yet resilient devotion to tie together his final creative vision.
Interpreting the conceptual purpose intrinsic to an instrumental hiphop album is quite different than analyzing the transparent narrative and content of a singer's lyrics. However, hiphop arrangement makes no unsolvable mystery of the multiple stratospheres that build its sampled architecture. And while listening more carefully to Donuts and unraveling some of its layered puzzles, there is no question that Yancey was trying to come to terms with his own death on the approaching horizon by way of his production. Some of the cryptic code offers itself to us listeners.
As if peacefully saying goodbye to the terrestrial and firmly implanting himself into the everlasting through his art, Donuts ironically begins with the 'outro' and ends with the 'intro'. It does not take a leap of imagination to think that Dilla, a man completely absorbed in his music, understood his own life in terms of a musical narrative. The title 'outro' on the introductory track hints to the idea that Yancey composed Donuts as a personal meditation on death. We bear witness to the outro of a human life--the conclusive chapter--in the form of a tragic yet triumphant swan song.
The meaning of the closing 'intro' is more veiled in structure and purpose. Prefaced by two hymns of goodbye that halt and hesitate, reach out and shudder back, each song addresses a farewell to a respective audience. In “Bye.” Dilla opens a dialogue with his listeners, holding onto the Isley Brothers’ crooning, “Don't ever. . .” as we finish the words solemnly, “say goodbye”. And in crushing sincerity Dilla implores us, “I feel you”, implying that there is no reason for us to say last goodbyes despite the emphatic period at the end of the song's title. In the brooding penultimate dirge, “Last Donut of the Night”, Dilla dwells on the arresting texture of his self-realization that his life's work would soon come to an end. We feel his anticipation of a pending finale through the ghostly guise of an MC introducing the life's work of an anonymous musician about to take stage. That frozen moment of suspense comes to an abrupt interruption with an insight of clarity hurled forth in the lucid 'intro'.
In this heart wrenching very last song Dilla manages nothing short of a musical apotheosis. He employs a sample of one-hit wonder Motherlode's 1969 single, “When I Die”, a heartfelt soul jam originally directed towards a distant lover readdressed to everyone who listens. The track is propelled by serene percussion that drives Motherlode to chant in chilling harmony during the chorus, "When I die / I hope I'll be / The kind of man / That you thought I'd be". In the concluding 'intro' Dilla strategically cuts Motherlode's chorus to elevate the self-proclaiming "be" intertwined twice with the contrasting concept "die". The acoustic quality of the words are manipulated into near incomprehension, as Dilla deconstructs the notions of being and death into their minimal sonic elements of raw feeling.
Facing death head on, Dilla elongates Motherlode's vocals into a celestial proclamation, emphasizing not only the beauty of life but even his own oncoming second life, as he dissipates into becoming, and finally being, the music itself. As a last memory recorded in wax, Dilla aligns himself with a heritage of musicians who have passed but continue to live on in the hearts of all who hear his everlasting sonance. Maybe that is why we do not ever have to say a last goodbye.
Intro J Dilla.
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