J Dilla - The Shining: Album Review

J Dilla, The Shining (BBE, 2006)
When legendary hip-hop producer J Dilla bought the proverbial farm earlier this year (a "rare blood disease," they're saying), he left this album in some state of semi-completion. If I had to guess, I'd say it was less than half. Obscure Detroit producer Karriem Riggins was brought in to finish the job.

• J Dilla @ MySpace

GEEK DOWN

Busta Rhymes shouts several f-bombs over what sounds like Beethoven's 5th played on kazoos. No, really.

E = MC²

Common spitting hot fire over what sounds like someone singing Einstein's theory of relativity into a vocoder. Still, probably better than anything on Be.

LOVE JONES

An instrumental. It sounds like Dilla himself did the drums on this on an actual kit.

LOVE

What ever happened to Pharoah Monche, anyway? There was never another album from him after Internal Affairs, right? He sings a bit too much on this for my liking, but otherwise he's still got it.

BABY

Featuring his Jaylib partner Madlib and someone calling himself Guilty Simpson. Sounds like something that wasn't quite good enough for Champion Sound.

SO FAR SO GOOD

Another one with Common, this time in the vein of "Go" from his last album. D'Angelo, or someone doing his best D'Angelo impression does the chorus.

JUNGLE LOVE

Guilty Simpson pops up here along with MED aka Medaphor. Skip.

OVER THE BREAKS

Another instrumental, this time with an "eerie" vibe.

BODY MOVIN'

J. Rocc and Karriem Riggins, whom, from what I understand, may have been involved with piecing this mess together, were somehow involved with this.

DIME PIECE

Really not a whole lot to recommend this one. Dwele sing-mumbles a few D'Angelo-isms over a fairly half-assed Dilla beat.

LOVE MOVIN'

Similarly, I wonder if they could've found a better beat for Black Thought to flow over here. Did J Dilla die with only 15 tracks in the vault?

WON'T DO

You can hear the faintest bit of the Isley's "Footsteps in the Dark" in the background, which was also sampled recently on that Rhymefest album, which is cool. Otherwise, this would be a fairly average Slum Village record.

COMMENTS: Even more so than Donuts, this sounds like whatever J Dilla's nearly lifeless remains could squeak out right before he returned to the essence, as the GZA would say. It's not without its moments, and I'd recommend it for committed J Dilla fans, but you can't help but think what might have been.

BEST TRACKS: "E = MC²" "Love" "Baby"