Today would have been the 46th birthday of legendary Hip-Hop producer and crate digger supreme, J Dilla. I don’t always celebrate Dilla’s birthday with a post, but it seemed apt this year, since one of the first records I got in 2020 happens to also be one of my absolute favorite things that he sampled. Tin Tin was mostly a duo consisting of a pair of dudes named Steve, namely Steve Kipner & Steve Groves. The album might have gotten a bit of a boost because of the inclusion of Maurice Gibbs of the Bee Gees both as a producer and musician on multiple songs. “Family Tree” wasn’t the hit, at least not the one mentioned on the front jacket, but it was my solitary reason for tracking this record down. I actually had a chance to take this home from the first Rappcats pop-up of 2020, featuring the collection of Geoffrey Weiss (you’ll definitely hear some of the LPs I DID pick up in the near future), but just missed it, as I arrived uncharacteristically late. Luckily for me, I found a sealed copy online at a reasonable price.
“Family Tree” is the primary sample from J Dilla’s “All-American Graffiti” on his legendary album Donuts. Hearing that song before this original, I was convinced that Dilla must have added drums and a handclap (as well as assorted Wolfman Jackisms) to the rock break that seemed to be from Tin Tin. The drums just hit so hard, the claps so perfect as well, I couldn’t comprehend them, along with the guitar and the singing, to all come from the same song. When I actually heard “Family Tree” I was legitimately shocked by how much of this is in the original. The song is an odd one for sure, with that stark electric and acoustic guitar intro that seems so completely out of place with the rather upbeat British bubblegummy pop of the majority of song. But then, we come to the last 28 seconds…when I heard it the first time, my jaw dropped that all of the musical elements of Dilla’s track were right there. Even now having heard it dozens of times, I still insert the Wolfman’s “Ugh, Ugh” when it begins because it seems almost impossible that it’s not there to begin with. It’s one of those breaks that boggles your mind so much you think it must have been recorded just for Hip-Hop minded ears to find it and chop it up, even though it would be years later before anyone considered sampling old records to make new beats. The way Dilla takes those brief moments, and constructs an entire song, subtly taking the guitar licks out of sequence in order to give the track a flow that makes it sound almost as if the entirety of the instrumental had been recorded that way in 1970 or that Dilla had been playing guitar throughout the final mix of the track. But in actuality, it is only a moment, and as such, it’s a testament to the genius of Dilla that he took that moment, and like the sonic alchemist he was, transformed it into something legendary, that whole generations of future music lovers will never forget…
