It was this week in 2005, that Hip Hop lost one of it's greatest producers. James Dewitt Yancey, aka Jay Dee or J Dilla is still to this day, your favorite producer's favorite producer.
In Detroit in the late 1990s, Jay Dee was producing Hip Hop beats with local acts like Phat Kat, and his group Slum Village. After meeting up with q-Tip and the rest of Tribe Called Quest, his beats began to become o part of the fabric of mid-90s Hip Hop. Common, De La Soul, Pharcyde, Tribe and many others went to Jay Dee to get that soul Hip Hop sound.
In the early 2000s, J Dilla's solo career began to take off and he gained critical acclaim as a producer and an emcee. Around this time, Dilla was spreading his beat tapes all over the industry. These samples of beats were sent to MCs like Busta Rhymes and Talib Kweli. They would pick the beats that they'd like to use for their albums. One of these beats found it's way to Steve Spacek. It sounded like this...
Steve Spacek took that and created "DOLLAR." The sample source for these songs comes from a track by the great Bill Paul from his album WHEN LOVE IS NEW. That track is called, "LET THE DOLLAR CIRCULATE."
