Jay Dilla’s masterpiece of beats entitled The Shining (namely the instrumental version) is in the truest sense hip-hop to its core. Released posthumously, The Shining serves as the pivotal moment in the short-lived career of Detroit-native Dilla in which beatsmithing became the composing of music. The original version of the album includes guest MC’s that include Common, Madlib, Guilty Simpson, Black Thought (from The Roots), Talib Kweli, along with others and boasts a silky blend of rhyming and soul stanzas – definitely a different beast on its own. However, I think that the instrumental version – the strictly Jay Dilla-ness of the album – is a consistently tight soundpiece that exhibits the producer at his peak. One may consider these beats to be too simple, too bare bones, as Dilla has, in fact, composed the collection of beats with very little. Yet, I feel that there is nothing left to add to any of these tracks; Dilla has crafted each piece with his keen (emphasis on ‘keen’) sense of loop selection as well as signature pounding drums to create a complete production of music unheard of in the likes of most facets of hip-hop. At times, it sounds like every element of the track was recorded straight from the source in a studio with a microphone, rather than from samples no doubt ripped from his extensive catalogue of vinyl. I can only describe this morsel of hip-hop mastery in one way – completely raw.
woops!
If you don't feel like breaking the law that much just listen to this and you'll be alright:
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