The twitter tribute one-upmanship was still ringing in my ears, so maybe I was slightly cynical; but I was concerned that a celebration of a musician's work not built on the sand of the internet would soon be reduced in many peoples' mind as a mere twitter trending topic.
Thankfully, on the night at The Deaf Institute in Manchester, local stalwarts like Mr Scruff were letting the music do the talking. During his set of original tracks that were later sampled by Dilla I was reminded of the spirit of sharing and exploration that lead, before Google, to the discovery of Dilla's work.
For me Dilla represents a yard-stick in creativity and quality. For a generation of British mid twenties who are sometimes ashamed to admit they began with Dr Dre's Chronic 2001, Dilla provoked an organic journey of discovery, his name played as a credibility "Ace" at Red Stripe house parties in the UK, which lead to us as individuals and collectively finding out that many of our favourite underground Hip-Hop tracks had his fingerprints all over them.
Hip-Hop as a genre thrives on word of mouth. The internet exploded word of mouth; as forums became chat rooms; as chat rooms became instant messaging; as instant messaging became myspace(with its music badges); as magazines became blogs; and as everything became Facebook. Time and Space collapsed as Dilla's name and work became as accessible as anyone else's in the world.
After his tragic death, the publishing tools available on the internet leaked with tributes and recognition for Dilla that simply wouldn't have happened without the user-generated world wide web. Although Manchester shares some distinctive similarities with Detroit (ex-industrial, popular sports teams, rich musical heritage, poverty driven creativity) a tribute to Dilla in Manchester on a Friday may never have happened. I bought tickets on Skiddle after seeing the event on Facebook; I twitter requested a track to the DJ; we "tagged" in at The Deaf Institute.
Upon realization of this I relaxed and enjoyed a unique night that would not have been possible without Dilla and The Internet. His music alone settled any negative atmosphere and all in attendance took joy in the break from Stella soaked debauchery of a more typical Friday night in Manchester. Speaking to one of the DJ's he reminded me that, using the yardstick of creative quality of Dilla, he was allowed to risk playing other quality Hip-Hop tracks that wouldn't see the light of day at any other night. Plus the night raised over £3000 for Lupus UK.
I have the utmost respect for artists such as Q-Tip, Busta Rhymes and Ghostface Killah who publicly shared heartfelt memories of their work with Dilla and mourned for their personal loss, but for the rest of us mere listeners, who continue to discover new material, to share rare tracks with new listeners, to be inspired by the meticulous quality, divine inspiration and cutthroat sense of credibility of one of the undoubtedly greatest producers of our generation in the collapse of time and space that is the internet;
J Dilla is still very much alive.
