Omaha 1st official J Dilla Day celebration set for Culxr House, Feb. 15
Join the “J Dilla Tribute Show with Friends” at Culxr House, Saturday, February 15th.
Doors at 8:00 pm; entry $10 donation. 50% proceeds to the James Dewitt Yancey Foundation.
The show is a celebration of the life of the late “great lofi hip hop producer” Dilla for Black History Month.
Local hip hop artists have a special offering for Omaha’s music enthusiasts, audiences, and fanatics. This coming Saturday, they celebrate the first-ever Dilla Day show in North Omaha. “We have given the blessing to do a Dilla event. This is your official notice that Omaha, Nebraska, will be doing their first Dilla Day celebration. I’m so excited,” said Maureen Yancey, the head of James Dewitt Yancey Foundation. “They are already wrapped up into youth, education, and all things good to inspire and help our youth to become whole individuals and to steer them in the right direction. I want to welcome Culxr House in Omaha. They are working with the foundation, and they are a nonprofit foundation on their own standing. I’ve been very inspired by the work that they do. I want to thank you so much, Culxr House, for what you’ve done, for reaching out to a sister organization, and paying it forward to our young people. One love; Official Ma Dukes.”
Mr. Yancey was an American record producer and rapper who gained prominence in the mid-1990s underground hip hop scene in Detroit, Michigan, as one-third of the acclaimed music group Slum Village. He is known as “one of the music industry's most influential hip-hop artists,” working with notable acts including A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Busta Rhymes, Erykah Badu, The Roots, The Pharcyde, Madlib, and Common.
The organizers will offer doughnuts, as it was a favorite of the late James DeWitt Yancey, also known as music producer Jay Dee. When he began dating a girl who worked at Detroit’s Dutch Girl Doughnuts, “he would bring home at least two dozen doughnuts every night after he had already eaten one [dozen],” said his mother, Maureen Yancey.
The tribute will feature a lineup of established Omaha artists, including Scky Rei, Marcey Yates & Xoboi (as Dilla Kids), Nate Sky Qahhaar, Stryke, J. Crum, BigFoots Mom, Phantom Janitor.
For more details on the life of Mr. Yancey, visit the Facebook event page here.
“It was incredible to have J Dilla in your dining room making beats – it was one of the greatest experiences I’ve had.”
– Common
The Life of Yancey
James Dewitt Yancey was born on February 7, 1974, at Zieger Osteopathic Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, the oldest of three children born to Beverly and Maureen “Ma Dukes” Yancey. The family’s musical lineage was strong; mother Maureen was an opera and classical music enthusiast and father Beverly a bassist, vocalist, and 25-year performance and recording, veteran. “Jazz was the music he grew up with and was raised on,” says Ma Duke. “Since he was a couple of months old, he wouldn’t go to sleep unless he heard jazz, so my husband had to sing and play for him to go to sleep. It was his lullaby music as a child in his nursery.”
Maureen Yancey said their home was filled with music. "Dilla's interest in music started at age 2," said Maureen Yancey. "Dilla carried 45s on his arm and turntables to the park every day, to spin records—and this was in downtown Detroit." After graduating from Farwell Middle School, Yancey enrolled at Davis Aerospace Technical High School.
Yancey got his start working in the studio for A Tribe Called Quest. When his own rap trio Slum Village found a hit with their album Fantastic, Vol. 2, Yancey became one of hip-hop's most sought-after producers. The young producer's reputation for bare-bones, "old-school" production and rap styles earned him quick respect in the hip-hop community during the last six years, reports NPR.
James Yancey became one of the music industry's most influential hip-hop artists, working for big-name acts like De La Soul, Busta Rhymes, and Common.
Studio album
2001: Welcome 2 Detroit
2003: Champion Sound (with Madlib as Jaylib)
2006: Donuts
After a brief career in the spotlight, he died at age 32 after battling an incurable blood disease and lupus, Friday, February 10, 2006. The Saturday, February 15 showcase celebrates the legacy of J. Dilla and the community that can be made around the love of music.
