Respecta.is - The Ultimate Hip Hop Portal

When I reminisce on James Dilla “Detroit” Yancey, I dwell on Detroit. Dilla embodies Detroit. Though I’ve never physically visited the feeling I received when I first heard “Welcome 2 Detroit” on February 27th 2001 took me on a trip.

Music I believe should take you somewhere, and Dilla had the ability to do just that. J Dilla is “Detroit”! In 2012 as a musician and lyricist I want to visit the world but not physically and take my family with me, music I believe is beyond the physical plane so I decided to start the year off visiting the home of one of the greatest producer’s that ever touched a MPC and that’s none other than Jay Dee.

With the love I had for his first solo effort I wondered what it would be like if I visited Detroit and J Dilla had the chance to show me around, so instead of just lyrically expressing my feelings over Dilla tracks I wanted to feel like we were in the studio together and I needed to get direction from Dilla’s lyrics on what I should reflect on.

I choose only to do five of the original 14 tracks on "Welcome 2 Detroit" because I had no intent to recreate Dilla’s album but give a sample of how great the original album is, I hope that this project motives listeners to visit Dilla’s first solo album if they haven’t before, or even revisit it again.

I would like to dedicate this project to the Yancey family, and to the legend “James Jay Dee Yancey” born February 7th 1974. I hope that this project can be seen as a fan paying respect to the family, and friends of JDilla.

With sincere and honest love,

Melodious Monk

released 07 February 2012
Produced entirely by: J Dilla, taken from "Welcome 2 Detroit"