Stadnicki D. A. 2017 Play Like Jay Pedag PDF

jpme 1 (3) pp.
253–280 Intellect Limited 2017
Journal of Popular Music Education

Volume 1 Number 3
© 2017 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/jpme.1.3.253_1
DANIEL AKIRA STADNICKI
University of Alberta
Play like Jay: Pedagogies of

drum kit performance after
J Dilla
ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This article explores the legacy of hip-hop producer J Dilla (1974–2006) through J Dilla
examining his impact on live drum kit performance and pedagogy. Specifically, drum kit
it addresses how the so-called ‘Dilla-feel’ is emulated by drummers and rhythm neo-soul
section players through a range of informal learning strategies and extended tech- informal music
niques, which include practices of online teaching and learning. Closely asso- learning practices
ciated with the neo-soul movement of the late 1990s and early 2000s, J Dilla’s popular music
musical contributions have often gone overlooked, despite being essential for the pedagogy
development of the characteristic, lilting time-feel heard on many of these record- hip hop
ings. Incorporating historical, ethnographic and performance-based approaches,
the study outlines how hip-hop’s sample-based aesthetic has dramatically shaped
live musicianship on more traditional instruments, focusing on the significance of
J Dilla’s drum programming in contemporary popular musicianship.
Introduction
James DeWitt Yancey – aka, Jay Dee or J Dilla (1974–2006) – was a Detroit-born
hip-hop producer, MC and multi-instrumentalist who not only helped define
the sound of R&B and hip hop throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, but
www.intellectbooks.com 253
Daniel Akira Stadnicki
1. This study contributes whose innovative sampling and production techniques opened new avenues
to a growing area
of research among
for live performance altogether. Akin to the distinctiveness of swing in jazz,
emerging scholars Dilla’s in-between, straight/swung, ‘drunk’, and ‘laid back’ time-feel is a signif-
and performers. icant contribution to contemporary popular music that evades quick interpre-
Since embarking on
this project in 2013 tation, transcription and definition. Some of the world’s most renowned pop,
(Stadnicki 2014a, 2014b), hip-hop and jazz musicians have replicated grooves that bear the mark of his
several undergraduate production style – achieved in part because he did not quantize his music.
theses and capstone
projects have been Dilla’s approach helped create an imperfect, yet extremely complex time-feel,
published that similarly opting to perform his samples through live playback on the pads of an Akai
address J Dilla’s
impact on sampling
MPC 3000 (which has recently been donated to the Smithsonian National
and live drumming Museum of African American History and Culture). More than ten years after
performance, often his death, J Dilla continues to inspire legions of fans and young musicians,
drawing from
the same pool of remembered for giving hip-hop beats a ‘human quality’ (King 2013).
available scholarly This article explores the legacy of J Dilla through his impact on live instru-
resources (Reindfleish mental performance, focusing specifically on applications to the drum kit. My
2014; Sciortino
2014; Nordlund analysis concentrates on the development of live instrumental techniques
2015; Biasani 2016; that emulate the ‘Dilla feel’ – a groove meant to sound as if technologically
Ullman 2016). Some
music composition
mediated – while simultaneously signifying the producer’s ‘human’ touch. As
majors have even such, I investigate J Dilla through the work of drummers, scholars and musical
applied J Dilla’s beat collaborators, rather than offering a more direct, in-depth study of the artist
programming and
rhythmic concepts and his music. The article begins with an investigation of J Dilla’s involvement
to their own work, with the Soulquarian Collective and the considerable impact he had on two
including a recent core members: Amir ‘Questlove’ Thompson and Michael ‘D’Angelo’ Archer.
piece by Nick Fagnilli,
titled ‘PassacaDilla’ Foregrounding later developments in drum kit performance, this section will
(Fagnilli personal web highlight their practices of emulating J Dilla’s feel using different musical
page 2017).
instruments, deepening scholarly understandings about the complex beat
placements and grooves found in neo-soul recordings. In the second half of
the article, I draw attention to more overt pedagogical developments, reflect-
ing upon my own drumming practice, analysing a selection of J Dilla-inspired
online drum lesson videos, and incorporating interview statements from four
Canadian live instrumental hip-hop musicians to highlight the development
of innovative pedagogical approaches to performing J Dilla’s music.1
Dilla’s Musical Canon: A brief background

Perhaps best known for his work with Slum Village and their celebrated
albums Fantastic Vol. 1 (2006, originally released as a mix tape in 1996) and
Fantastic Vol. 2 (2000), J Dilla collaborated with several R&B and hip-hop
artists throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, including A Tribe Called Quest
(as a member of ‘The Ummah’ production team), Busta Rhymes, The Pharcyde,
Janet Jackson, The Roots, Erykah Badu, Common, D’Angelo, Talib Kweli, Mos
Def (Yasiin Bey) and many others. Along with these efforts were Dilla’s self-
titled recordings, such as Welcome to Detroit (Dilla 2001) and his final artis-
tic statement, Donuts (Dilla 2006a), a 31-track, sample-based record released
just days before his death. Widely believed to have been composed from his
hospital bed while he received treatment for lupus and a rare blood disease
(Ferguson 2014: 88–90), Donuts helped pave the way for a new musical sub-
genre: experimental hip hop (D’Errico 2015). A consistent flow of mix tapes
and albums have been released posthumously, including The Shining (Dilla
2006b) and more recent projects spearheaded by his mother, Maureen ‘Ma
Dukes’Yancey: The Diary (Dilla 2015), JayDee’s Ma Dukes Collection (Dilla 2016)
and Motor City (Dilla 2017). Self-proclaimed ‘Dilla-heads’ organise annual
254 Journal of Popular Music Education

Play like Jay
tribute shows across North America and some release their own mixtapes,
such as The Roots’ Dilla Joints (The Roots 2014). Noting a ‘burgeoning micro-
industry of posthumous product,’ Simon Reynolds writes that Dilla is perhaps
the first ‘hip-hop beat-maker [to have] received the kind of life-after-death
treatment afforded [to] superstar rappers like Tupac and Notorious BIG’
(Reynolds 2009). With each passing year, the late producer’s popularity only
seems to grow, achieving a level of recognition far surpassing anything he
experienced when he was alive.
J Dilla helped advance a range of hip-hop production techniques that
have since become conventionalized, even clichéd. For Primus Luta, these
include the chop – single instrumental ‘stabs’ that are sampled from the same
source and played across the pads of a sampler – as well as drum and instru-
ment isolation, de-quantization and vocal stabs (Luta 2012). This ‘chop-
ping’ approach with the MPC can be heard on the Donuts track ‘Don’t Cry’
(Dilla 2006). As Mike D’Errico writes, ‘Dilla abstains from juxtaposing vari-
ous samples into a multi-layered loop, instead rearranging fragments of a
single sample into an altogether different groove’ (2015: 283). Jay Hodgson
also credits Dilla for being an early proponent of side-chain pumping, ducking
and envelope following – production techniques that are now ‘as common as
“tapping” and “power chords” once were in heavy metal’ (Hodgson 2011: 1).
Perhaps the most widely publicized aspect about J Dilla’s production
revolves around quantization, a function designed by drum machine pioneer
Roger Linn in the 1980s that ‘refers to the “rounding off” of beats to their near-
est note value’ (Brett 2013), allowing producers to ‘perfectly subdivide electric
drum-machine sounds into positions within a measure’ (Russonello 2013). In
other words, a groove that may initially sound ‘out of time’ – lagging behind
the beat, or rushing ahead of a perceived pulse – can be corrected with the
use of the quantizing function, much in the same way that a vocal melody can
be altered with software such as AutoTune in post-production. Preferring to
finger drum his beats on the MPC and ‘leav[ing] them raw and unquantized’
(Brett 2013), Dilla achieved ‘a looser, human feel, fitful and fallible, sometimes
pushing “off-beat” to the edge of plain wrong’ (Reynolds 2009). De-quantizing
these patterns can certainly impact the metrical precision of a beat, but merely
‘turning off’ the function oversimplifies what Dilla achieved, ‘which was [to]
impose his own humanized sense of timing onto the de-quantized patterns
of the machine’ (Luta 2012). Still, the discourse of de-quanitzation has perme-
ated Dilla’s musical narrative, functioning as a conceptual term in live drum-
ming performance and education (more on this later).
J Dilla’s time-feel is also a testament to his own rhythmic proficiency and
drumming ability, achieving a sense of liveness and ‘humanity’ because his
beats were performed. The Roots’ drummer and bandleader Amir ‘Questlove’
Thompson elaborates on this notion, describing a moment he witnessed J
Dilla performing samples from Roy Ayers ‘Ain’t Got Time’ (1972) for the Black
Star track, ‘Little Brother’ (2000). While listening to the song, Questlove air
finger-drums on an imaginary MPC, demonstrating the physicality involved
in its performance, stating: ‘This sounds normal to you, and that’s the thing.
He made it sound fluid. He made it sound like it was an actual loop. Like, you
can’t even hear the microchops in it’ (2:00–2:14min) (Red Bull Music Academy
2014; Mao 2013). Exploiting ‘the seemingly untapped technological affor-
dances of his primary instrument, the Akai MPC sampler’ (D’Errico 2015: 283),
J Dilla disrupted the repetitive, metronomic backbeat that had characterized
much of hip hop since its inception, manipulating conventional time-keeping
in groove-based forms of popular music. For Mark Abel, an ‘unwritten rule’ in

groove music – which includes rock, pop, and hip-hop – is a ‘strict adherence
to the pulse’ (2014: 26). But in blurring the pulse location and tapping into a
particularly wobbly rhythmic swagger, Dilla’s grooves became ‘endowed with
extra expressiveness because of their isochronous context’ (Iyer cited in Abel
2014: 29), creating ‘a new paradigm for the swing rhythm’ (Russonello 2013)
that helped shape the music of his contemporaries and the neo-soul aesthetic.
Searching for Dilla’s Neo-Soul: Questlove, D’Angelo, and the

Soulquarian Collective
Characterized by a mix of soul/funk nostalgia, jazzy timbres and the aesthet-
ics of hip-hop production, the neo-soul genre enjoyed a golden age period
from the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2000s. Though some critics have
noted that the label was indiscriminately applied to a host of soul and R&B
artists throughout the period (Cunningham 2010), several highly successful
albums that bore the neo-soul moniker were produced by the Soulquarian
Collective. Originally comprised of members J Dilla, Questlove, D’Angelo, and
James Poyser, the group later expanded to include Erykah Badu, Common,
Bilal, Mos Def, Talib Kweli and Q-Tip (Thompson and Greenman 2013: 283).
These artists were part of a unique collaborative environment that utilized
both traditional musical instruments and samples (Marshall 2006, n.18: 890),
producing multiple Grammy-nominated and award-winning albums, many
of which were recorded simultaneously at Electric Lady Studios in New York
City, including: D’Angelo’s Voodoo (2000), Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun (2000),
The Roots’ Things Fall Apart (1999), and both of Common’s albums, Like Water
for Chocolate (2000) and Electric Circus (2002).
As a core member of the collective, J Dilla is often credited for being the
‘driving force’ behind the Soulquarian movement (Arnott 2008), even ‘father-
ing’ the neo-soul sound (Bandini 2016). In his autobiography, Questlove writes
that Slum Village’s Fantastic Vol. 1 ‘was a messiah moment, in a way, for people
like me and D’Angelo and Q-Tip. We had been looking for someone to lead
us out of the darkness, to take us across the desert’ (Thompson and Greenman
2013: 160). Dilla’s impact on The Roots’ drummer has not been lost on music
journalists, either, as Eric Sandler observes that Questlove ‘clearly learnt a lot’
from Dilla’s approach to beat programming, pointing to his performance on
D’Angelo’s track ‘Playa Playa’ (2000), which ‘exhibit[s] the funky swing of the
rimshot against the booming bass drum to give a distinct sound that perme-
ated throughout the whole album’ (Sandler 2013, emphasis added).
D’Angelo’s ‘Voodoo’ and the question of liveness: Can it be done

without machines?
Sandler’s remarks suggest that J Dilla’s characteristic ‘swing’ is detectible in
Questlove’s Voodoo drumming, inferring that the producer’s unique time-
feel was somehow being emulated on the acoustic drum kit. Anne Danielsen
initially reinforces this notion, quoting Questlove in a footnote that credits
‘JayDee’ for inspiring the intentional ‘discrepancy in the drum pattern’ on one
of Voodoo’s tracks (Danielsen 2010b n. 7: 25). However, the author maintains
throughout her analysis that the ‘almost vertiginous blurring of the pulse’ on
several neo-soul recordings from the period is likely the result of ‘processes
of technological mediation [that] add important and otherwise unachievable

Play like Jay
qualities to both sound and groove’ (Danielsen 2010a: 2–3). From this perspec- 2. The liner notes are
here reproduced in
tive, Voodoo’s ‘peculiar, almost sea-sick time-feel’ (2010b: 21) is more of a a retrospective Slate
testament to the use of digital editing techniques ‘after the recording process magazine article.
is complete’ (2010b: 19). Focusing on D’Angelo’s ‘Left and Right’ (2000),
Danielsen quotes Questlove again, this time regarding Voodoo’s production:
D’Angelo himself has stated on his website that everything on the

Voodoo album is played rather than programmed, and drummer and
co-producer Questlove describes their musical aim as follows: ‘For
D’Angelo’s Voodoo, we wanted to play as perfectly as we could, but then
deliberately insert the little glitch that makes it sound messed up. The
idea was to sound disciplined, but with a total human feel’.
(2010b: 24–25)
Nevertheless, Questlove’s explanation is contradicted by D’Angelo’s status

as being the only musician ‘credited with all of the instruments’ on ‘Left and
Right’ (2010b: 25), meaning that the singer likely recorded and layered multi-
ple tracks himself. Noting the ‘steadily unsteady’ pattern in the guitar part on
‘Left and Right’ as a key example (2010b: 25), Danielsen assumes that ‘real
musicians would probably have trouble producing truly multiple locations of
a basic pulse’ (2010a: 3). These factors all indicate that at least some of the
album’s ‘little glitches’ were ‘likely processed after recording’, such as adding
delay and repositioning the guitar track on ‘Left and Right’, as well as ‘quan-
tizing imprecisely played percussion into straight demisemiquavers or manu-
ally adjusting the recorded audio events to a grid of this resolution’ (2010b:
25). In a similar vein, Loren Kajikawa downplays the role of live performance
on the album, claiming that after ‘meticulous’ remixing, editing and electronic
revision, the only remaining evidence of ‘a live performance feel’ on Voodoo is
manifested in its average song length of 6–8 minutes (Kajikawa 2012: 148).
Going even further, he found that listener ‘experiences of heightened intensity’
are likely associated with the use of technologically mediated studio effects,
such as overdubbing D’Angelo’s vocals (Kajikawa 2012: 148).
These interpretations run counter to repeated musicians’ narratives that
emphasize live musicianship during the Voodoo recording process. In Jason
King’s liner notes to the album’s 2013 vinyl reissue, he reiterates, ‘The concept
behind Voodoo was simple. Put together a kick-ass ensemble of R&B musicians
bent on grooving together. Record them live, in real time, jamming face-to-face
in an effort to capture their conviviality and chemistry’ (King 2013).2 Some key
performance practices are detailed in King’s notes, including Pino Palladino’s
‘back phrasing’ technique on the track ‘Untitled (How Does it Feel)’. According
to co-writer and bassist Raphael Saadiq, this approach was meant to ‘achieve
a “loose, way back in the pocket feel” or a “rubber band feeling”’, generating a
destabilizing groove as the bass ‘is constantly changing its location in relation
to Questlove’s straight-ahead, heavy time, impeccable drumming’ (King 2013).
For Kristoffer Yddal Bjerke, this effect was further enhanced by the low pitched
‘timbral shaping of the bass guitar, which is round, dark and warm, with a soft,
long attack’ (Bjerke 2010: 95). Under D’Angelo’s guidance, Palladino claims
he recorded to backing tracks that were ‘deliberately messed up’ in a way that
evoked J Dilla’s production, stating: ‘I attempted to put the bassline where I
thought he wanted it. I would never have thought of putting it so far back
behind the beat’ (King 2013). Furthermore, several of Questlove’s personal
accounts connect D’Angelo’s music with the late beat maker, suggesting that
D’Angelo’s ‘woozy, fucked-up sounds’ (Thompson and Greenman 2013: 153)

had ‘this inebriated execution thing […] we both got from J Dilla’ (King 2013).
Discussing J Dilla’s time-feel in terms of de-quantization, Questlove felt that
‘switching off perfection switched on the human quality. Real drummers slow
down. They speed up […] D’Angelo was suddenly willing to be imperfect, and
that was exciting to me’ (Thompson and Greenman 2013: 153). Again, under
D’Angelo’s direction, the drummer similarly described the process of tracking
drums on Voodoo:
[D’Angelo] wanted me to drag the beat, but then he’d drag the beat
behind me. And so now I gotta program my mind to think, ‘OK, this is
the metronome […] (plays a steady beat on the rim), and now he wants
me to play […]’ (puts kick and snare in and around that beat) (Mao 2013).
However, considerable gaps exist in the narrative, particularly regarding J

Dilla’s involvement on the recording. Though he is cited as having ‘inspired the
musical aesthetic’ for Voodoo (Ferguson 2014: 43) and it is noted that he was
‘instrumental […] [for its] rhythmic and percussive elements’ (Sandler 2013),
J Dilla is not formally credited on the album. Compounding this dilemma is
that D’Angelo himself has not expressed the same degree of influence as has
been suggested by writers and his colleagues. Instead, Prince’s work on The
Time’s ‘777-9311’ (1982) is named as the main inspiration behind D’Angelo’s
interests in ‘drunk drumming’ (Mao and Schmidt 2014), a point reinforced by
Questlove in a separate interview, admitting that D’Angelo had already devel-
oped a ‘drunk’ time-feel on his previous album, Brown Sugar (1995) (though
Questlove believes this ‘was more of an accident’) (Mao 2013).
So how is it that J Dilla could be so closely associated with the album if
he did not officially contribute to it? On the one hand, we can read J Dilla’s
role as being much more implied, his music functioning as a reference point
for certain performance and recording practices among key members on the
album. Recalling the first time he heard J Dilla perform ‘a crazy discrepancy
in the kick drum’ with The Pharcyde in 1995, Questlove writes ‘It was almost
like someone drunk was playing drums – or, more so, that a drunk, brilliant
4-year-old had been allowed to program the kick pattern […] I was para-
lyzed, uncertain how to feel’ (Thompson and Greenman 2013: 159). Setting
off a paradigmatic shift in his playing, the drummer simultaneously honed his
skills in the studio throughout the late 1990s with engineers Bob Power and
Russell Elevado, replicating the timbres of hip-hop samples on his acoustic kit
and achieving the ‘sonic dirt sounds’ of sampled recordings (Marshall 2006:
886). Employing a range of studio effects and techniques, Quest performed on
multiple drum kits and MPCs, used unconventional sizes for hi-hat cymbals,
experimented with different speeds on two-inch tape (Orr 2011), and fed
his drums through guitar amps and ‘extreme compression’ (Thompson and
Greenman 2013: 161). Connecting Questlove’s ‘engineering achievement
to his musicianship’, Wayne Marshall suggests that his live performance of
‘authentic’ hip hop required both execution and the appropriate recording
conditions (Marshall 2006: 886). Most notably, Questlove’s performances
managed to resist ‘sounding too much like a computer or a drum machine […]
employing a more flexible, anti-quantized approach to the beat and resolving
to leave “mistakes” in the final mix’ (Marshall 2006: 883).
In addition to Questlove’s personal strategies, collaborative practices
for emulating Dilla’s music are reported on both the Voodoo album and The

Play like Jay
Roots’ Things Fall Apart. One account is documented in both Wayne Marshall’s
article (2006: 886) and in a Drum! magazine interview with Questlove (Orr
2011). Quest explains how, during the making of Things Fall Apart, the song
‘Dynamite’ was initially based on a programmed sample that J Dilla provided;
apparently, it was also the first time Dilla worked with the band as part of
the Soulquarian Collective (Patrin 2010). Confident that he could recreate the
programmed sounds on the acoustic kit, Questlove covered the drums with
blankets and manipulated them with compression, successfully fooling Dilla
into thinking it was his original beat. Elsewhere, the drummer suggested
that he and D’Angelo re-recorded some of Dilla’s samples during the Voodoo
sessions, which included chord changes, providing the most explicit account
of aural emulation on the album:
Before Fantastic Vol. 1, we had a nice little 200-beat collection of Dilla

treats, so once we got our hands on it, that basically kick-started Voodoo.
Even though his songs didn’t technically make the album, he was very
much a part of the production process. Virgin [the record label] was mad
at us because instead of working on the album like we were supposed
to do, we spent two months straight not even recording anything – like,
literally putting the record on, learning the chords, then going into the
studio and redoing it.
(Reese 2016)
These emulative practices articulate complex relationships between live

instrumental performance, sampling and studio effects on the Voodoo album,
many of which can be traced to J Dilla as both collaborator and Soulquarian
muse. Moreover, the efforts of Questlove and D’Angelo reflect a range of prac-
tices that bear the hallmarks of informal music learning among popular musi-
cians, which include choosing one’s own music, copying recordings by ear,
learning in groups, watching, listening and imitating each other, and assimi-
lating skills and knowledge in personal, often haphazard ways (Green 2006:
106). These dimensions of learning – often associated more with amateur and
self-directed musicianship than professionals – form the analytical basis for
the second part of this article.
Play like Jay (online, alone and together): Pedagogical

developments
Bridging Questlove’s personal journey and collaborations with D’Angelo, the
following section will address more explicit strategies used to emulate Dilla’s
time-feel on the drum kit. First, I will draw from my own drumming perfor-
mance and teaching practice, including a self-reflexive account about my use
of standard Western notation to transcribe these patterns (all of which are in
4/4 time). Following this will be an analysis of select YouTube instructional
video clips that highlight specific drumming techniques to perform Dilla-
beats, framing these developments within broader pedagogical discourses for
online learning. It will conclude with suggestions made for performing these
grooves in an ensemble through incorporating interview statements from four
Toronto-based instrumental hip-hop musicians. Together, these three different
perspectives aim to provide a multivalent account of informal learning prac-
tices used to study and teach J Dilla’s characteristic swing on traditional musi-
cal instruments.
Quintuplets: My route to Jay Dee

I first became aware of J Dilla through a grainy YouTube video of a drum-
mer named Chris ‘Daddy’ Dave playing along to Kanye West’s song ‘Flashing
Lights’, presumably during a sound check (Cooper 2008). I was fascinated
with Dave’s peculiar swing and lilted rhythm, which, as it turns out, was
partially informed by J Dilla’s beat programming (see Micallef 2017). The
groove sounded as if it were falling somewhere in-between swung triplets,
straight eighth and sixteenth notes. However, I was unable to reproduce the
time-feel and was unsatisfied with my efforts at transcribing the pattern using
these rhythmic groupings. I eventually experimented with the idea that quin-
tuplets could help generate the in-between, swung/straight time-feel, revisit-
ing a text that proved very difficult for me when I was an undergraduate jazz
student: The Five Over One Workbook by Ottawa-based drummer and educator,
C. R. Burrows (2001). In the process, Burrows’ book helped me internalize and
apply the quintuplet figure across the kit and has since informed my methods
of performing, teaching and lecturing about the Dilla time-feel.
Based around a series of backbeat grooves with alternate stickings, the
Five Over One Workbook provides a range of accessible, concise exercises.
Specifically, exercises no. 5 on page 2 (Figure 1) and no. 5A on page 10 (Figure
2) feature my preferred alternating sticking pattern (RLLRL) in both fill- and
groove-based contexts. After becoming comfortable with this sticking, I even-
tually adapted the 5A exercise and performed it in different configurations:
repeating the quintuplet over beats 3 and 4, moving the quintuplet to the
beginning of the measure, playing it in an alternating hi-hat pattern (Figure
3), and ‘ghosting’ the snare with the left hand (Figure 4). To my surprise, when
I opted to leave out the left hand entirely from the RLLRL sticking (Figure
5), this created the Dilla-feel I was searching for, which I later adapted into a
quintuplet ‘shorthand’ (Figure 6).
Of course, I was not alone in applying these rhythmic groupings to
these types of grooves. Since embarking on this research, quintuplets and
septuplets have become increasingly popular pedagogical approaches that
are regularly featured in online instructional video clips (Schlueter 2016;
Jungleritter 2015; Reynolds 2015; Edgar 2014, 2012) and drum magazine
Figure 1: Scanned image of Ex. 5/Page 2 from Burrows (2001). The RLLRL
quintuplet as a snare-based roll.
Figure 2: Scanned image of Ex. 5A/Page 10 from Burrows (2001). Groove-based
fill using the kick drum, snare and hi-hat in a quintuplet grouping.

Play like Jay
Figure 3: Hi-hat-based quintuplet groove using RLLRL sticking.
Figure 4: RLLRL sticking, performing quiter (ghosted) left hand on the snare drum and accenting the
backbeat with the right hand on the snare drum.
Figure 5: Omitting the left hand in the RLLRL pattern, striking only with the right.
Figure 6: The quintuplet groove ‘shorthand’.
articles (Burcham 2017; Nilles 2017). Perhaps the most well-known propo-
nent of this drumming style is Anika Nilles, incorporating quintuplet
grooves and odd-metered exercises in several of her original composi-
tions, play-along videos and popular online drumming lessons (Falk 2017;
AnikaNillesVevo 2016; Drumeo 2015; Falk 2015; iDrum 2015). Additionally,
Jan ‘Stix’ Pfennig recently co-authored an exercise book dedicated entirely
to quintuplet and septuplet-based grooves, titled Swag-Drumming: Hip
Hop Grooves In In-Between Feel (Pfennig and Przemus 2015). As it states on
Pfennig’s personal website, the ‘swag’ method allows drummers to ‘transform
all your normal or favourite binary Grooves & Fills to an Inbetween-Feel
with a quintuplet or septuplet microtime’ (Jan ‘Stix’ Pfennig Official Website
2017). Still, few quintuplet and septuplet-based drum lesson videos directly
attribute the time-feel to J Dilla – it is perhaps more common to find explicit
references in the YouTube comments section (see below). One exception is a
video from composer Adam Neely, describing the use of a septuplet-based
groove to roughly approximate ‘what Questlove of The Roots calls playing
with a “drunk” feel […] also heard this called playing “unquanitized”, or my
favourite, “that Dilla thing”’ (0:16–0:33min) (Neely 2014).
However, I found that adhering too strictly to the quintuplet risks generat-
ing a very different, even rigid time-feel. It only seemed to partially emulate
Chris Dave’s performance in the ‘Flashing Lights’ video, as his addition of extra
kick drum strikes (0:04–0:08 minutes) (Cooper 2008) emphasized straighter
eighth and sixteenths underneath the lilted cymbal pattern, seemingly moving
Figure 7: Alternating straight and swung rhythmic groupings to produce the ‘Dilla/Chris Dave’ feel.
in between quintuplet phrasing, swung triplets and straighter time-feels.

The groove could also be achieved entirely without the use of quintuplets by
alternating between swung/straight rhythmic groupings in a single measure.
For example, one could move back and fourth between a dotted eighth and
sixteenth note grouping with what is typically the second half of a swung,
‘jazz’ ride cymbal pattern (Figure 7), blurring the sixteenth note and triplet
beat locations at the end of each figure when repeating the groove. Still, I
find that subdividing the pattern in this manner allows me to produce a kind
of short-cut to the Dilla-feel, artificially generating a groove that can lead to
more nuanced playing and analysis.
Formalizing Dilla? Reflections on standard drumming

transcription
My use of and preference for standard drumming notation is not without its
pitfalls. By imposing a quintuplet structure over these grooves, the analysis
could overlook crucial interactions between the drums and other instruments
that, collectively, generate the time-feel aesthetic. Alternative forms of tran-
scription are also prominent in studies of neo-soul-inflected hip hop and
R&B, perhaps indicating the limitations of standard Western notation. These
include spectrographic images (Danielsen 2010; Bjerke 2010; Hodgson 2011;
D’Errico 2015), modified/graphic notation (Marshall 2006; Carlsen and Witek
2010) and screenshots of digital editing platforms to demonstrate ‘chopped’
and programmed beats (D’Errico 2015; Biasini 2016). In the case of the latter,
these materials could be particularly useful for drummers as forms of graphic
notation. For instance, several YouTube tutorials discuss how to program beats
like J Dilla on various software applications and drum machines (Verysickbeats
2016; Wolf D 2013; Thomas 2013), often sharing methods of shifting or ‘nudg-
ing’ snare drums, hi-hats and kick drums deliberately ‘off meter’ to give it a
more ‘humanized’, Dilla-feel (Maschine Masters 2016; 5:40–6:27min). One
tutorial video by YouTube user Slynk considers programming the Dilla time-
feel in triplet-, quintuplet- and septuplet-based combinations (he even
describes the feel as ‘quintuplet-’ and ‘septuplet-swing’) (Slynk 2016a, 2016b).
Slynk breaks down how to manipulate the triplet swing function on the
Ableton software platform, ‘squeezing in’ ratios of five and seven hi-hats in
the space of four eighth notes (3:2 for quintuplets, 4:3 for septuplets) (Slynk
2016b). Leaving each hi-hat track in the video, Slynk provides a visual beat
log that documents slight variances between straight eighth, swung triplet-,
quintuplet- and septuplet-based groupings when looped on the Ableton grid.
Still, it is debatable whether the act of transcription could significantly
improve a musician’s chances of successfully performing these grooves, rather
than primarily learning them from recordings. This issue came up in my inter-
view with guitarist Robb Cappelletto, who advised against using standard nota-
tion, stating, ‘I don’t really see the value of writing the stuff down in the first
place because we’re going to get it on paper and say, “hmmm”. But you still

Play like Jay
need to listen to it to get what it sounds like’. When he does transcribe, Robb 3. Accordingly, I won’t
be addressing the
notates ‘the closest, writable rhythm and then put[s] something big, like an far more prevalent
arrow that says “pull back”, or “back phrase”’. But in general, he challenges the Dilla-inspired ‘play-
idea that a notated representation could replace the more necessary experience along’ videos and
drum covers, nor will
of listening. In his discussion of the ‘back phrasing’ technique, Robb explains: I employ stylistic
analyses of key
One of the things I used to ask at clinics is, ‘is a back phrased 8th note still figures who have
helped popularize
an 8th note?’ […] If I write a back phrased 8th note as an 8th note, it gives the Dilla time-feel on
you no indication, if you’re reading music, of what this actually sounds the drum kit (such
as Anika Nilles, Chris
like. It gives you a simple written version that you can interpret, but if you ‘Daddy’ Dave, Robert
play what’s on the page, it sounds nothing like the feel of the track. ‘Sput’ Searight, Daru
Jones, Perrin Moss
and Richard Spaven).
When I disclosed to Robb my own transcribing approach, he acknowl- Examples of this type
edged that conventional notation would likely lead to the use of compound of work can be found
groupings, like septuplets and quintuplets, but this would similarly, nonethe- in Nello Biasini’s
research (2016), whose
less, miss the point: transcriptions highlight
moments where
drummers emulate
One note would be part of a quintuplet, and the next note is part of Dilla’s ‘exaggerated
a septuplet, and the next one […] like, to notate them using conven- swing’ on select
tional notation, they become completely unreadable. It’s really strange. recordings (2016:
31–38).
[…] Like, you just play four notes and the first is part of a sextuplet, and
the second is part of a septuplet, and the third one was on the beat and, 4. Flamming is the name
given to a drumming
you know what I mean? […] You’re going to read this and your brain is technique similar to
going to start smoking and you will just have to listen to the recording executing acciaccatura
to get it, anyways. in classical music.
Robb’s comments reiterate that the quintuplet figure is not required for
understanding or executing Dilla’s time-feel, nor do I mean to imply in my
YouTube analysis (below) that drummers unknowingly perform these rhyth-
mic groupings. Instead, it represents my own personalized strategy for playing
and teaching Dilla-inspired beats.
Decoding Dilla-Beats Online

This section will examine six YouTube lesson videos that explicitly apply J
Dilla-inspired beats to the drum kit.3 All drumming transcriptions are my
own and utilize the quintuplet figure in some instances, notwithstanding the
complexities and challenges of this approach, as articulated above. Each lesson
demonstrates slightly different approaches to performing these grooves,
reflecting how wide variations in practice can arise out of aurally emulating
J Dilla’s music. In the analysis, I identify flamming4 on the drums as a shared
performance strategy in each of these lessons. Apart from one example that
includes a clip of ensemble playing (Spyker 2015; 1:00–1:50min), each video
is performed solo, sometimes with a metronome or along to a backing track.
Finally, each lesson is primarily demonstrative in its presentation: instruction
focuses on highly personalized strategies that are accompanied with alterna-
tive performance techniques, colloquial drumming terminology and, in some
cases, imprecise rhythmic concepts.
Theoretical context: Informal learning 2.0

Here, I draw from the work of Waldron (2016) and others who identify prac-
tices of informal learning in online musical contexts, including YouTube music
lessons (Kruse and Veblen 2012; Miller 2011; Waldron 2012, 2011, 2009;
Waldron and Veblen 2008). Waldron’s development of Lucy Green’s research
(Green 2002, 2006) – which she updates to ‘informal music learning practices
2.0’ – considers the broader implications of web-based technologies, identi-
fying how ‘self-directed learners use the Internet to learn vernacular musics’
through their 24/7 access to resources, tools and user-generated content, as
well as their engagement in various online community activities (Waldron
2016: 93). These web-based technologies complement already-existing prac-
tices that occur offline, as Waldron and Veblen found that YouTube videos
foster both aural and observational learning, which, in conjunction with addi-
tional lesson materials (standard notation, etc.), can provide an ‘added bonus’
for users in folk music contexts (Waldron and Veblen 2008: 105). Waldron’s
research on Irish Traditional musicians also found that these continuations of
practice extended to teachers, who, through YouTube, ‘combine aural/oral and
observational modes typical of informal music learning consistent with [Irish
Traditional] practices’ (Waldron 2009: 196).
Rather than examining community-driven questions about how YouTube
videos ‘can act as vehicles of agency to promote and engage participatory
culture’ (Waldron 2012: 94), I instead focus on ‘aural and kinesthetic’ dimen-
sions of observational teaching and learning online (Waldron 2011: 47) – what
Kiri Miller identifies as ‘modeling-and-imitation’ approaches (Miller 2011:
165) that, when translated to the YouTube lesson context, can become slightly
altered. For instance, Miller highlights the ‘repeatability’ factor in online
lessons, noting that students can watch and review clips multiple times while
having their attention directed at camera close-ups of hands and finger-place-
ment: ‘I can watch [drummer] Nate Brown play a beat pattern, then pause and
try it myself (twice or a hundred times), then back up and freeze-frame to try
to figure out how he is coordinating his hands or gripping the sticks’ (Miller
2011: 165). Similarly, Kruse and Veblen found that 100 per cent of the YouTube
instructional videos they surveyed provide aural reinforcement and model-
ling, including physiological prompts, such as hand shape, feel and placement
(Kruse and Veblen 2012: 83). Not only do YouTube lesson videos emphasize
aural/observational learning practices, but online teaching content is found
to be less ‘dictatorial’, privileging ‘open-minded and flexible approach[es] to
instrumental technique […] offer[ing] students multiple technical options and
encourag[ing] them to explore their own preferences’ (Miller 2011: 179). This
can also be seen in the disclaimers that some instructors use to preface their
lesson for its idiosyncratic material. For example, one drummer featured in the
video analysis, Arthur ‘LA’ Buckner, states:
All these examples that I’m showing you in this video, it’s not the way
to do the Dilla-feel. It’s just a way, my way; it’s what worked best for me.
So, when you’re at home and when you’re playing this stuff, you should
definitely make variations to everything and make it your own. But this
is just my technique, this is the way I go about bringing this thing to life.
(mcnallysmith 2016b; 2:22–2:45min, emphasis added)
In the process, YouTube videos contribute new dimensions of learning to

recognized informal music practices. They can allow greater access for students
to mimic and observe lesson content at their own pace, while simultaneously
providing instructors with a format to demonstrate their knowledge in a more
personal, performative and less-formalized manner.

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Performing flams and ‘rubs’: The videos

In each YouTube clip, variations of hi-hat placement over the top of a repetitive
backbeat form the basic lesson structure. Subsequently, flams emerged as a shared
performance strategy for emulating the Dilla time-feel by generating rhythmic
discrepancies between the kick drum, snare and hi-hat. To begin, Reuben Spyker’s
lesson demonstrates a range of flamming exercises that make the beat sound ‘like
it’s barely holding itself together, but is still keeping in time’ (0:22–42min) (Spyker
2015). Spyker outlines what he calls ‘lagging’ kick and snare patterns, or ‘jumpy’
lagging hi-hats (2:30–2:56min) that can be honed by flamming each instrument/
part of the kit (Figure 8). Initially, Spyker emphasizes the hi-hat in a quarter note
pulse with ‘early’ kick and snare drum strikes. Once becoming comfortable with
these patterns, drummers can apply these flams to their backbeats by placing
hi-hats, snares or kicks (bass drums) in any of these configurations. In addition
to these exercises, Spyker found that bobbing his head in an exaggerated manner
‘helps to keep everything going’ (3:17–3:30min). Ultimately, however, ‘the thing
that’s going to help you sound best when you play this is just listen to lots of
those grooves as much as you can and just start mimicking them’ (4:03–4:10min).
Similarly, Tyler Lydell’s first segment in the three-part series ‘Lessons
from J Dilla’ (Music Lab 2015) includes the use of a flamming method on the
hi-hats, initially performing the groove along to the track ‘Won’t Do’ from J
Dilla’s album The Shining (2006). Though a key difference is that Lydell does
not explicitly acknowledge the use of a flam in this exercise. Concentrating
mostly on the song’s elongated ‘four-bar phrasing’ structure (1:33–1:47min),
Lydell adds an additional strike to the hi-hat with his left hand that is slightly
before the right, generating a flam between them (Figure 9). The resulting
Figure 8: Spyker’s flamming exercise between the kick drum, snare and hi-hat in ‘early’ (before hi-hat) and
‘late’ (after hi-hat) configurations (2:56–3:14min) (Spyker 2015).
Figure 9: Transcription of Tyler Lydell’s groove, playing along to beginning of ‘Won’t Do’ (2:55–3:04min)
(Music Lab 2015).
groove has a pronounced, ‘thicker’ sound on the hi-hats that adds textural
interest without sacrificing the metrical accuracy of the beat. This feature
may have been added to emulate the highly compressed drums in the origi-
nal recording, which include a slightly ‘glitchy’ sound effect, layers of hand-
claps and tambourine strikes that condense the overall sound of the snare
(Figure 10). This is further supported by Mike D’Errico, who noted that Dilla’s
tendency for heavy application of ‘the internal compressor of the MPC [gave]
the music an aggressively dynamic ebb and flow’ (D’Errico 2015: 285). These
kinds of timbral factors may help contextualize why some techniques may be
applied to the drum kit.
As Tyler Lydell’s video demonstrates, some details in the lesson may go
unmentioned, even though they perform a crucial part in the execution of
the drumming pattern. This issue arises in Marc Beland’s video, ‘How To
Play a J-Dilla Inspired Hip Hop Beat’ (DrumLessonLand 2012), where he
suggests that all the ‘ands’ on the hi-hat should be played approximately
1/32nd note late, stating: ‘I say a 32nd note to give you an idea how slightly
I’m delaying the beat, but really, I’m just approximating it’ (0:52–1:00min)
(DrumLessonLand 2012). Using a standard backbeat as a template, Beland
gradually performs his version of a Dilla-beat with a prominent rhythmic
lilt, but he does not mention how throughout the clip he also appears to
‘splash’ his hi-hat foot in a very specific manner. This is most apparent (even
visually so) at the end of the clip, where he expands upon the groove with
additional fills (2:42–3:05min). The resulting pattern is not simply a 32nd
note approximation on the hi-hats, but a groove that closely incorporates
the left hi-hat foot flamming with the right hand (Figure 11). Beland’s video
generated a broad range of user comments, some of which addressed gaps
in his approach, provided interpretations of J Dilla’s beat programming, and
discussed the use of quintuplets:
Figure 10: Transcription of the original ‘Won’t Do’ groove from The Shining (first 15 seconds of the track)
(Yancey 2006).
* = indicates a ‘glitch’ in the sample, achieving a distorted effect; circled snare drum = hand clap sample
layer; triangle = tambourine

Play like Jay
Figure 11: Marc Beland’s ‘flamming’ hi-hat foot pattern in quintuplet notation (DrumLessonLand 2015).
Gross approximations about drumming drive me nuts. Count the hi-hats

in quintuplets but only play the first and fourth notes of the grouping.
ONE two three ONE two ONE two three ONE two etc […] And hit the
drums like you mean it. You can add variations by ghosting other notes
in the 5 grouping on the hi-hat. Thanks for the video though.
(Stockbridge 2015)
Is it me, or did this drummer forget to mention that he is opening the

hi-hat on the ‘ands’ with his left foot? It adds that feel he’s talking about.
Other than that, good lesson!.
(Rivera 2015)
Is it just me or does the 8th notes sound kind of swingy?.

(Alson 2016)
- Yeah. Dilla is known for his use of the swing function. That’s what
gave his beats that bounce.
(McDonald 2016)
- +Sean McDonald Yeah man, the craziest part is he didn’t use the
quantize swing on the MPC 3000 he turned quantize off completely
and the swing was done completely by his natural drumming.
(General-Jordan 2016)
In contrast, Arthur ‘LA’ Buckner’s video series ‘Behind the Beat’ (mcnally-
smith 2016a) offers a comprehensive study of J Dilla-inspired drumming
patterns. Describing the time-feel as somewhere in between straight and
swung, Buckner demonstrates this by performing a basic backbeat by moving
gradually between straight eigth note to swung triplets on the hi-hats.
Referring to a black and white visual graphic at the bottom of the clip, a cursor
moves between the two poles during his demonstration: ‘straight 8th notes
are black and swung, dotted 8th notes are white, then I want to play in the
grey area, ok? It’s gonna be in-between straight and swung, it’s gonna be
both: strung’ (1:37–1:55min). Buckner’s ‘strung’ concept playfully articulates
how a drummer can achieve the Dilla feel simply by moving between straight
and swung patterns over a basic backbeat, subtly experimenting and adjust-
ing with the groove. He then adds an additional kick drum to the ‘and’ of beat
3, performing the hi-hats in the ‘strung’ style while maintaining a straight 8th
note groove in the kick and snare drums (2:40–2:59min). With this layering of
strung hi-hats and straight kicks, flamming is achieved when they do not line
up precisely, which he describes as a ‘rub’ (3:37–3:52min). Transcribed here in
quintuplets, the ‘straight’ kick drum pattern occurs during the third rhythmic
grouping (Figure 12), placed similarly to where Marc Beland’s flamming occurs
between his hi-hat foot and cymbal sticking.
In his second video instalment (mcnallysmith 2016b), Buckner focuses on
snare drum placement to generate more flams. It is here where the addition
of snare and hi-hat embellishments modifies the timbre of the basic back-
beat, emulating more compressed and processed drum sounds. Interestingly,
Buckner describes the lesson using terms from beat programming, refer-
ring to quantization, as Dilla and others ‘would take the snare notes – and it
would either be every snare note or every other snare note – and they would
move it forward just a little bit so that it was slightly rushed right before the
metronome hit’ (0:44–1:28min). Buckner then proceeds to demonstrate ‘non-
quantized’ playing using different snare placements, transforming the basic
backbeat to a more ‘strung’ articulation by flamming the snare slightly ‘earlier’
than the hi-hat strike on beat 4 (Figure 13) (1:56–2:10min), maintaining the
hi-hats with a straighter 8th note execution. Buckner adds further variations,
leaving the hi-hat open during each snare drum strike (an idea he claims to
have borrowed from Questlove), ghosting notes on the snare and performing
the kick drum slightly ‘earlier’ than the hi-hats (Figure 14). The resulting sound
is a cyclical, stumbling groove that integrates each separate component from
the lessons.
The final video examples come from the New York-based 80/20 Drummer,
Nate Smith. In his ‘How to Play Dilla Beats’ (The 80/20 Drummer 2016) and
‘How to Play Like Chris Dave’ (The 80/20 Drummer 2015) video segments,
Smith offers an in-depth look into ways that drummers have already
approached J Dilla in their playing, including Arthur Bruckner, Chris Dave
and Perrin Moss. Smith’s exercises show how displaced and ‘off-set’ rhyth-
mic emphases are generated in different ways, working mainly with triplet
groupings. Often correlating Chris Dave’s playing with J Dilla, Smith moves
interchangeably between the two, reviewing Buckner’s lesson videos and
Figure 12: Buckner’s addition of the ‘straight’ kick drum to the ‘strung’ hi-hat, creating a rub.
Figure 13: Arrows indicate the snare drum as being performed ahead/‘earlier’ (or ‘unquantized’) in relation
to the hi-hats, generating a flam between the left (snare) and right (hi-hat cymbal) hands.
Figure 14: Buckner’s ‘strung’ Dilla-feel with ‘un-quantized’ kick drum and accented, open hi-hat on
backbeat snare. Kick drums are performed slightly earlier/before the hi-hat strike (indicated with arrows).

Play like Jay
Figure 15: Sextuplet groove of the ‘basic Chris Dave’/Dilla beat.
Figure 16: RRL alternating sticking on the hi-hat; performing Chris Dave’s ‘Find A Way’ drum beat (The
80/20 Drummer 2015: 14:00–16:06min).
R R L R R L R R L R R L
Figure 17: Perrin Moss variation of the Dilla beat, with ‘off-set’ hi-hats that flam against the kick and snare.
demonstrating what he calls the ‘basic Chris Dave beat’ (The 80/20 Drummer 5. At the time of writing,
however, the audio has
2016: 5:59–6:05min). In an earlier video lesson on Chris Dave (The 80/20 been muted in Chris
Drummer 2015), Smith performs the groove in groupings of triplets (12:40– Dave’s video due to a
12:46min) (Figure 15, transcribed here in sextuplets). copyright disclaimer –
though it is integrated
Smith demonstrates how one could approach the ‘basic Dave’ beat and into Nate Smith’s first
add ‘delayed’ notes to the pattern, articulating a more ‘strung’ time-feel that lesson video on Chris
echoes Buckner’s example of the kick drum ‘rub’ (see Figure 12). Smith also Dave at 10:44–10:56min
(The 80/20 Drummer
performs a well-known Chris Dave beat that is featured in a medley video, 2015).
playing over A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Find A Way’ (1998) (Dave 2012)5 that uses
an alternating RRL hi-hat sticking pattern. Transcribed below from his previ-
ous Chris Dave lesson video, Smith counted out the rhythmic figure in triplets
(Figure 16, transcribed in sextuplets).
However, in reviewing Buckner’s Dilla lesson, Smith utilizes ‘straighter’ kick
drums underneath the same triplet-based alternating hi-hat groove, generat-
ing flams between them by moving the snare and kick drum strikes to more
‘delayed’ articulations, part of what he calls an ‘implied frame’ (7:22–7:33min)
(The 80/20 Drummer 2016). In this way, the triplet/sextuplet hi-hat grooves offer
a model in which to play with more implied ‘strung’ articulations with the kick
and snare drums, as Smith admits that the triplets in the ‘basic Dave beat’ are ‘not
quite that swung, but it’ll give you an idea’ (8:10–8:13min) (The 80/20 Drummer
2016). Smith then concludes the Dilla lesson with some of Perrin Moss’ drum-
ming variations, which are ‘literally playing every hi-hat note off-set’; opening
the hi-hats on beats 2 and 4 (8:39–8:48min) and generating a prominent flam
between the three instruments (Figure 17, transcribed in quintuplets). Again,
Smith experiments with these exercises using the kick drum, which he places ‘in
the original straight 8th, 16th, 32nd quantization’ and ‘mov[ing] it over with the
implied beat’ to produce these flams (8:50–9:02min) (The 80/20 Drummer 2016).
Ensemble contexts: Final suggestions from four practitioners

In this section, I will explore some of the themes and topics that emerged in
my interviews with four Toronto-based musicians who regularly perform live
instrumental hip hop. Three of the participants were members of the group
Re.Verse – Robb Cappelletto (guitar), Damian Matthew (electric bass) and
Maxwell Roach (drum kit) – while the fourth, Ian de Souza (electric bass), is
one of Toronto’s most celebrated session bass players. Each interview occurred
separately over Skype and our informal discussions focused on how they
approached J Dilla’s beat programming. Their perspectives offer critical insight
into the application of Dilla-inspired grooves to live performance settings,
challenging conventional thinking that the time-feel can only be produced
on the acoustic drum kit, as well as demonstrating their own individual and
collective learning strategies.
Beginning with Ian de Souza, the bassist declared that he first had to train
himself how ‘to be a rhythmic loop’. Conceptualizing the ‘loop’ as a way of
experimenting and improvising across bar lines before landing back on the
‘one’, Ian defined it in the following manner:
A loop is not the space between beats. It’s the space between a given
set of time. It’s not the space between 1, 2, 3, 4: it’s the space between
64 of those put together and knowing that at any moment, you can play
behind, or you can play ahead, as long as when you get to the end of
that cycle, you’re back to 1 again.
In many respects, Ian’s comments resonate with Anne Danielsen’s research

on the all-important One in funk music, which operates as the focal point of
the groove – a ‘downbeat in anticipation’ (Danielsen 2006: 73) – that ‘intro-
duces, almost demonstratively, its own pulse’ (2006: 139). Following this beat
placement, rhythms can become much more syncopated and ambiguous, as
long as the performance returns ‘on top’ of the One (2006: 73). However, in
the context of J Dilla’s productions, sampled beats and sounds can behave
very different from early funk music, as Joseph G. Schloss noted how sampled
loops repeat unnatural timbral qualities, including ‘strange melodic and rhyth-
mic discontinuities where the end of the loop meets the beginning’ (Schloss
2014: 71). Read together, live looping within a Dilla framework requires a keen
aesthetic understanding of how the One can function both timbrally and rhyth-
mically during a sampled beat. Correspondingly, Ian emphasized the timbral
qualities of his instrument when performing live hip hop, noting that the bass
is informed by a much ‘darker’ quality and rhythmically focused execution:
I think with playing this kind of music, yes, the notes are important, but
the whole concept is not so much about the notes. It’s more an empha-
sis on the rhythm. I think the sound of the instrument, the tone […] you
need a dark sound. There’s more an emphasis on ‘bigness’ and it’s all
about rhythmic punctuation, as opposed to what notes you’re playing.
As demonstrated in both Questlove’s history of recording techniques and

the use of flamming exercises in select online lessons (especially Tyler Lydell’s
example; Music Lab 2015), timbre performs a crucial role in the overall perfor-
mance of sample-based hip hop. By manipulating the tonal quality of their
traditional instruments, musicians address the unnatural, ‘glitchy’ and ‘dirty’

Play like Jay
timbres heard in recorded samples, ‘looping’ themselves in ways that both echo
and expand upon the technologically mediated aesthetic of sampled beats.
The three members of Re.Verse developed a range of unique collective
strategies for emulating hip hop as a group. About once or twice a week they
would meet up for ‘listening sessions’ – studying and discussing songs they
were interested in – as well as record their rehearsals and shows. This process
of recording and listening to themselves perform often yielded uncomfort-
able yet surprising results. As Maxwell explains: ‘the times when it felt the
worst were the best sounding. You have to gain a love of feeling the discon-
nect, because the best “swings” are not locked in. There are big discrepancies
between each player in the group’. Similarly, Robb needed to become used to
the sensation of eighth note flams occurring against each of the instruments:
‘that’s a feel I had to become comfortable with. The pocket is not us playing
the same thing at the same time: the pocket is where our notes are rubbing
against each other consistently when they happen’. Due to these ‘big discrep-
ancies’, Maxwell found that not listening to the other instruments was often
a big help: ‘I find just the more I play music, that is how you make the best
music. Like, do your job; your job is to do one thing’ (Roach 2015).
Conceiving each member as having a designated role in the group,
Maxwell’s comments echo descriptions of apart playing: a ‘strict division of
labor’ where ‘each performer concentrates on her own part and its immedi-
ate surroundings’ (Danielsen 2006: 50). Structuring these given roles, however,
is an implied pulse that each member needs to hear – what Ian de Souza
describes as the ‘silent metronome in your head with the people you’re play-
ing with’. As Robb states,
I think we’re all hearing the pulse that none of the three of us are play-
ing. The drums are playing ahead of that pulse, the bass is playing behind
that pulse, and depending on my role, I’m playing wherever the vocal-
ist would sing it, or wherever the key sample is laid, or where the string
sample is laid. […] We’re all hearing that invisible center of the beat.
From this perspective, apart playing necessitates the delegation of emula-

tive roles for live hip hop performers according to how each instrument is
interacting with the pulse on a given recording. By locating, emulating and
maintaining where flams occur, Re.Verse deconstructs processual and textural
‘participatory discrepancies’ (Keil 1994) that give this music its ‘vital drive’; the
asynchronous ‘push and pull’ moments between rhythm section instruments
that produce a groove, precisely because they are ‘out of time’ (citing Keil;
Butterfield 2010: 157). These unique emulative practices are demonstrated
further in Robb’s personal strategy of using slow-down software programs to
locate the sequence of beats on a given recording to understand where each
instrument is performed:
I put a lot of stuff in slow-down programs, for myself, when I’m learn-
ing. I’ll listen to a track or a record at twenty percent speed, just so I can
hear what instrument happens first on the beat […] Take the first track
off of Voodoo, ‘Playa Playa’. You know what the intent of the rhythm is
and it’s really simple to write it out in quarter notes and eighth notes,
but the feel of it is so not writeable. For me to learn it, I just have to
listen to it at, like, thirty percent speed for an hour and memorize what
that new rhythm is.
However, Robb believes that too many drummers try to create the time-
feel on their own, overlooking how it is actually generated between the differ-
ent instruments in an ensemble:
it’s like they’re trying to make the sound of the whole track only on the
drums […] It’s kind of like an aural illusion that when you hear the way
the keys and the bass are laid over it, there’s this kind of swing that’s
created by the instruments flamming against each other and the beat.
But no one instrument is creating that by itself.
This drum-centric emphasis can also lead to overly busy playing on the kit,
which, for bassist Damian Matthew, can negatively impact the tempo and veer
too far from the music’s origins in drum programming:
Drummers shouldn’t ever let their ‘Dilla drum tricks’ slow down the
beat! Their kick and snare have to not budge in terms of keeping up
the pulse, groove, time-feel and tempo, so there should be consistent
elements in the loop of the beat that anchor it and keep the feeling of
forward momentum and pocket going. This is because the beats were
made in loops on MPCs and other samplers that don’t budge in terms of
tempo, so even if a beat is loose and not (fully) quantized […] the loops
are still a slave to the pulse tempo.
Debunking common drumming approaches and terms, such as Dilla’s

‘drunken’, ‘laid back’ description, Maxwell feels that these concepts could
potentially mislead drummers:
There seems to be this misconception that ‘everything is laid back’, like

it’s a laid back sort of vibe […] but if you’re laid back on the drums,
that’s not the feel; like, you’re not playing the style […] What I was
noticing when I really started digging in is, wait a minute, everyone is
behind the drums […] the snare drum hits are way ahead of everyone
else and that’s what gives it that sense of urgency […] the snare drums
are always the element of pushing ahead […] The drums are supposed to
sound ahead.
A main issue that each member of Re.Verse recognized is that Chris

Dave has become the reference point for many drummers approaching these
grooves, learning cover song versions that he performed with artists like
Robert Glasper, rather than working on Dilla’s original tracks. For Robb, it’s
like ‘a copy of a copy of a copy’, neglecting any close listening of Dilla’s music,
or even the original songs and artists that he sampled from. Describing the
popularity of Glasper and Dave, Damian states,
there was a lot of background work for them to get there, but instru-
mentalists and drummers need to learn the basics and hold down
really good time with simple drums and learn how to do simple, effec-
tive drop-outs to give the beats more contour. Don’t jump to step
ten without learning about where they come from, like Motown and
J Dilla.

Play like Jay
After the beat: Conclusions

J Dilla’s imprint on popular music and culture has only begun to manifest
into practice. While the bulk of neo-soul albums were recorded almost twenty
years ago, Dilla’s rhythmic feels and grooves remain fresh and innovative for
today’s instrumentalists, even woven into the contemporary classical works
of Armenian pianist Tigran Hamasyan (Tigran Hamasyan Ancient Observer
Official Website 2017). One could surmise that Dilla’s cross-genre status is a
product of generational taste. Professors like Dan Charnas found that many of
his students born in the 1990s are ‘acolytes of J Dilla’, leading him to design a
course dedicated entirely to the late producer at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute
(Schwartz 2017). Similarly, Giovanni Russonello has noted that ‘jazz training
is starting to look like a competitive advantage more than a career roadmap’,
reflecting on how today’s artists utilize jazz concepts to perform live hip hop
and R&B. This is understandable, given that ‘millennial jazz musicians grew
up listening mostly to hip-hop, R&B and rock’ (Russonello 2013). These devel-
opments reveal the profound significance of sample-based popular music in
the creative lives of today’s post-secondary music students, offering fertile
ground for future research creation, as well as an opportunity to reflect upon
prevailing models of higher education that tend to fall short in the areas of
popular music performance and composition.
As demonstrated throughout each stage of this article, informal learn-
ing strategies provide the foundation for how drummers and rhythm
section instrumentalists aurally emulate J Dilla’s beat programming, in some
instances supplementing the process with software applications. These prac-
tices are largely self-directed, though more could be done to facilitate infor-
mal learning in traditional settings of higher music education. At the time
of writing, Robb Cappelletto has yet to have an ensemble-based course he
proposed on live instrumental hip hop to be accepted by the university music
department where he currently teaches. Rather than leaving these skills to
be acquired outside of class and in the privacy of one’s home, mentors like
Cappelletto would be an asset for music students studying at higher insti-
tutions. My own process of developing strategies from traditional drumming
texts and online instructional videos indicates some of the limitations of self-
directed, informal learning, until practitioners (musicians who actually play
this music, not just study it from a distance) rework my understandings and
the (over)emphasis I have placed on the role of the drummer.
Finally, the act of ‘writing Dilla back’ into the neo-soul narrative moves
beyond tracing the lineage of woozy, ‘drunken’ grooves heard on Voodoo and
other influential recordings. Doing so necessarily redirects attention to the
work of musicking bodies, demystifying neo-soul’s rhythmic complexities
while simultaneously challenging the impulse to place its affecting grooves
entirely in the hands of editing software. Analysts have often been left
‘fumbling for words to describe what D’Angelo does so effortlessly in sound’
(McClary 2000: 174), relegating Voodoo’s rhythmic complexities to the ineffa-
ble, otherworldly and divine to address ‘the immediacy of the album’s groove-
based aesthetic’ (Kajikawa 2012: 144), or attributing listener experiences of an
‘out of time feeling’ to D’Angelo’s church background and the album’s over-
arching themes of Afro-Caribbean spirituality and ritualism (Kajikawa 2012:
145). Not only would a greater understanding of J Dilla’s role and aesthetic
influence help provide tangible evidence to the execution of these patterns,
but much can also be gleaned from studying the accounts and approaches of
musicians who attempt to reproduce these grooves in real time.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank my interview participants – Ian de
Souza, Robb Cappelletto, Damian Matthew and Maxwell Roach – for sharing
their critical insights about this music. Special thanks to Ryan Davidson for
making digital versions of my hand-written drum transcriptions.
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SUGGESTED CITATION
Stadnicki, D. A. (2017), ‘Play like Jay: Pedagogies of drum kit performance after
J Dilla’, Journal of Popular Music Education, 1:3, pp. 253–280, doi: 10.1386/
jpme.1.3.253_1
CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS
Daniel Akira Stadnicki is a Ph.D. candidate in music and Vanier Canada
Graduate Scholar at the University of Alberta where he teaches courses in
both popular and world music studies. His dissertation explores the musical
narratives of Iranian Baha'i persecution, focusing particularly on the devel-

opment of a classical music programme at the ‘unofficial’ Baha’i Institute for
Higher Education (BIHE) in Iran. Daniel has presented internationally on a
range of topics that draw from his research interests and training in ethno-
musicology, music performance and cultural studies. This includes work from
his secondary field of expertise, drum kit performance studies. Daniel also
teaches, records and performs internationally as a drummer/percussionist
with a number of award-winning Canadian artists across the folk, roots and
world music streams. See and hear more at www.danielstadnicki.com.
Contact: Department of Music, University of Alberta, 3-82 Fine Arts Building,
Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2C9, Canada.
E-mail: stadnick@ualberta.ca
Daniel Akira Stadnicki has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format
that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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Journal of Popular Music Education

Play like Jay: Pedagogies of

Dilla’s Musical Canon: A brief background

254 Journal of Popular Music Education

in groove-based forms of popular music. For Mark Abel, an ‘unwritten rule’ in

Searching for Dilla’s Neo-Soul: Questlove, D’Angelo, and the

D’Angelo’s ‘Voodoo’ and the question of liveness: Can it be done

256 Journal of Popular Music Education

D’Angelo himself has stated on his website that everything on the

Nevertheless, Questlove’s explanation is contradicted by D’Angelo’s status

D’Angelo’s ‘woozy, fucked-up sounds’ (Thompson and Greenman 2013: 153)

However, considerable gaps exist in the narrative, particularly regarding J

258 Journal of Popular Music Education

Before Fantastic Vol. 1, we had a nice little 200-beat collection of Dilla

These emulative practices articulate complex relationships between live

Play like Jay (online, alone and together): Pedagogical

Quintuplets: My route to Jay Dee

260 Journal of Popular Music Education

Figure 3: Hi-hat-based quintuplet groove using RLLRL sticking.

Figure 6: The quintuplet groove ‘shorthand’.

in between quintuplet phrasing, swung triplets and straighter time-feels.

Formalizing Dilla? Reflections on standard drumming

262 Journal of Popular Music Education

Decoding Dilla-Beats Online

Theoretical context: Informal learning 2.0

In the process, YouTube videos contribute new dimensions of learning to

264 Journal of Popular Music Education

Performing flams and ‘rubs’: The videos

266 Journal of Popular Music Education

Gross approximations about drumming drive me nuts. Count the hi-hats

Is it me, or did this drummer forget to mention that he is opening the

Is it just me or does the 8th notes sound kind of swingy?.

268 Journal of Popular Music Education

Figure 15: Sextuplet groove of the ‘basic Chris Dave’/Dilla beat.

Ensemble contexts: Final suggestions from four practitioners

In many respects, Ian’s comments resonate with Anne Danielsen’s research

As demonstrated in both Questlove’s history of recording techniques and

270 Journal of Popular Music Education

From this perspective, apart playing necessitates the delegation of emula-

Debunking common drumming approaches and terms, such as Dilla’s

There seems to be this misconception that ‘everything is laid back’, like

A main issue that each member of Re.Verse recognized is that Chris

272 Journal of Popular Music Education

After the beat: Conclusions

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Cooper, John (2008), ‘Chris Daddy Dave-flashing lights’, YouTube, https://

Ferguson, Jordan (2014), Donuts, New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

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Roach, Maxwell (2015), telephone interview, 5 November.

278 Journal of Popular Music Education

narratives of Iranian Baha'i persecution, focusing particularly on the devel-

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