In February last year, Atwood-Ferguson put a 60-piece orchestra together to play a special tribute concert for Dilla at an arts centre in LA.
An EP that featured more of Dilla's works – Antiquity, Nag Champa, his old group Slum Village's Fall in Love and A Tribe Called Quest's Find a Way – followed a few months later. They created the track in Niño's LA apartment with just one microphone, recording one instrument at a time.
In 2007, on what would have been Dilla's 33rd birthday, Atwood-Ferguson and independent hip-hop champion and producer Carlos Niño released their brass, strings and woodwind version of Dilla and Common's Nag Champa for free download. "And I don't blame him."ĭilla died from a lupus-related illness nearly five years ago in February 2006. "He didn't really want to fuck with none of that," Tribe rapper Q-Tip told Vibe magazine a few years later. In 1996, Tribe were Grammy-nominated for their Dilla-produced album Beats, Rhymes and Life – but he had to be strongly persuaded to even attend the ceremony. By the time he was in his early 20s Dilla's music – full of rich, utterly unique drum sounds, warm, muzzy instrumentation and endlessly inventive melodies – was so popular he was getting called at home by A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul and Busta Rhymes. His mother was a singer and his father, Beverly, played piano and bass together they had an a capella jazz group, and there would always be singing at home. Born in 1973, James Yancey grew up in the Conant Gardens neighbourhood of Detroit and began making beats at home when he was just 11 years old.