Soul Recess: Dilla Joints: Listen to The Roots Cover J Dilla

August 24, 2017 | by Angela Zimmerman

Artist: The Roots covering J Dilla

Album: Dilla Joints

Release date: February 2010

Why Your Soul Needs This: It's a fucked up time. The news is too much to bear. There are white supremacists marching in the streets for fuck's sake. Mother Earth is losing the war with the virus that is humanity. A terrible human being is in the White House. It is impossible to proceed with life under the same halcyon haze that many of us (well, me at least) have been clinging to over the past decade.

And it's hard to reflect on any creative output right now without acknowledging how very essential it is to our daily survival and self-preservation. Keeping yourself afloat and able to look forward in 2017 is no easy feat. I know this is sentiment that doesn't even need to be vocalized right now, we all feel the same way. Shit is fucked.

Our soul needs a recess. Projects like Dilla Joints have the power to stabilize us, to galvanize us, to give us some hope, fleeting as it may feel, that there is still love and art and genius and tribute and reverence in the world. That may just be enough to sustain us through the long road ahead.

A record like Dilla Joints can feed your soul. A tribute album without any words that honors one artist's output, a man who influenced and helped shape a musical movement, whose stamp on the world not only endures but grows deeper. The Roots released this instrumental tribute album to the late producer on February 7, 2010 — what would have been James Yancey's 36th birthday. The 13-track compilation gives some of Dilla's best tracks The Roots treatment: Flawless production, perfectly crafted arrangements, a truly fitting homage to the brilliant and influential works of J Dilla. (This is not fake news).

Fun fact: You can download Dilla Joints for free RIGHT HERE.