Released: 2006
It’s frustratingly lost now (Or maybe the author is just misremembering) but a contemporary TV interview with Norman Cook – AKA Fatboy Slim – revealed just how simple the process of making his classic track The Rockafeller Skank had been. Inspired by pioneering samplers DJ Food and Coldcut, the former Housemartin had begun to craft his own material using equipment such as a turntable, sampler and computer; rather than winsome indie rock, out of such basic tools came a song that made him a global star.
James Dewitt Yancey didn’t come from that school, but as J Dilla his genius for taking fragments of the old and then transforming them into mind bending collages made him one of hip-hop’s most referenced producers of all time, a legacy which has only grown since his tragically premature death in 2006.
After working with The Pharcyde and Slum Village he went on to jam with what read like a who’s who of the underground rap game, including the Wu-Tang Clan, De La Soul, Mos Def, Q-Tip, Common and MF Doom. Creatively open minded, he shunned the over ground after being dropped by MCA, releasing his work on his own terms, often for free over filesharing networks.
The legendary Donuts was released three days before his death. Recorded almost exclusively whilst he was in hospital using only a sampler and record player, it’s thirty one tracks constitute a dizzying free flow, the experience a matter of taking cover as ideas ricochet everywhere. Lightworks took listeners somewhere else entirely though, playing in with a ghostly advert, melding pseudo-classical swatches, beats and haunted soul. Twisted, it’s main pitch shifted sample proclaimed “The name of the game is life”, an ironic reference clipped by a restless maverick who knew he was quickly running out of road. The machines that made it were simple, but as Norman Cook was also smart enough to realise, it was the humans manipulating them which brought the alchemy.
The Voice Of Unreason 