Erykah Badu - Didn't Cha Know
R.I.P. J Dilla, today is the 3'rd anniversary of his passing.
I had to choose this track for today as I absolutely loved this record and then I discovered that it was J Dilla that produced it.It's from the Platinum selling album 'Mama's Gun' released back in 2000. It came out as the second single in 2001.The album was produced by the 'Soulquarians' that comprised of:Talib Kweli, Common, Mos Def, James Poyser, ?uestlove, D'Angelo, Q-Tip, Bilal, Erykah Badu & a certain J Dilla.The story of how Dilla & Erykah Badu came to make this track is incredible, I'll quote Erykah:"I went to Detroit to work with this cat that I heard a few tracks from that drove me crazy. Common took me over there, we went down to the basement, Common left and Dilla and I sat and talked. He had records wall to wall like it was a public library and he goes, “OK, I want you to look for a record.” I’m looking through these organized, tightly packed crates, and I just pulled out one record and the artist was Tarika Blue. I liked that name. I put on the first track [“Dreamflower”] and I fell in love with the song and I kept playing it over and over again and I said, “I want this.” He showed me how to loop a small part of the bassline, he was very generous in teaching you and letting you be hands on. Then I left the room and when I came back he had looped some drums to a small sample of the song and I started to write to it. I came up with the "Ooooh, heeeey" melody. I wrote for a few days and then the song came to be. I’d hike down to his house in mittens and a scarf. I just kind of stayed down there and worked until we got the things the way that I liked."Amazing!
This is the sampled track 'Dreamflower' by Tarika Blue