MOG

Late last spring, I traveled westward to give a speech on copyright. It was my first time in the city I visited, which also was home to a music store I've shopped frequently.

After the speech, I made it out to the store and dropped a ridiculous amount of money on music. The two clerks working at the time were considerably younger than me, but they seemed to have a good grasp of the store's inventory.

While digging through the store's second aisle for the second time, I overheard the pair's conversation about hip hop producers. The female of the duo opined she thought J Dilla was overrated as a producer, and he would not be getting the global love had he not died at a young age. Her rationale was that Dilla's sudden passing at such a young age (32) burnished his musical reputation and legacy beyond what she thought it deserved.

Now, I can already imagine the outcry forming among the three or so people who are reading this. But, I let her opinion pass without comment; I just shrugged it off to the follies of youth.

On the plane, a brick of new music on the seat beside me, I unleashed my trusty portable CD player and proceeded to cue up Dilla's "Lightworks." (Yes, I still roll CD style instead of iPod when traveling.)

Now, "Lightworks" and I have a real funky type of relationship: I love the track, but I can't listen to it that much because it's hard for me to conceptualize that a human being could have put that together.

Let me analogize. If you've played or listened to electric bass all your life, and then you hear Jaco Pastorius play, you just want to put your instrument away because you know you'll never get to that level. True players recover, and keep striving regardless. And a true player may even inhabit Jaco’s general neighborhood for a while. But when you're talking about cats like Jaco, you're not talking about a man playing an instrument; you're really talking about God becoming one with the infinity of sound.

And so it is with J Dilla and "Lightworks." The first time I heard it, I was driving west on I-90 at about 6:15 AM. Dawn had just crept up, so my spirit was open to encountering special sorts of sounds. And then that opening quartet of cosmic notes comes in, with Raymond Scott talking about "the Tomorrow People."

Dude, I had to pull the car over.

After hearing "Lightworks," my reaction was split between "WTF?!??@?" and "Why bother?" Let me be clear about this, folks: For someone to flip a beat that consists of a promotional recording for a Midwest brake manufacturer with a filtered, sparse electronica rhythm reminiscent of something one would hear on a toy Casio keyboard is beyond sick. It's straight up retarded. It sounds like someone dropped a tab into Enterprise's water supply, and Lt. Uhuru is popping her hips against Capt. Kirk while tribbles fall from the ceiling.

Human beings don't create those sorts of sounds.

Although I continue to play "Lightworks" selectively, I've recovered enough to continue digging for, playing, cueing up, editing, and re-arranging music. Like I said, true players always play.

As for ol' girl in that record store, hey man: cut her some slack. She's young, and she hasn't yet learned to conceptualize the possibilities of sound.

P&L, Soultronica

Links: Bendix. "The Tomorrow People"