ILLA J – YANCEY BOYS (DELICIOUS VINYL)
OK so the kid brother of J Dilla has, with the help of said older-but-sadly-no-longer-with-us genius sibling, put out an LP on none other than Delicious Vinyl. That’s a pretty deep kind of magic wheel combination that leaves us asking: how to pass judgment? It would be difficult to offer an objective critique of Illa J’s debut LP and somehow manage to avoid getting steeped in the subjective or harping on about a certain prolific big brother. Luckily for you then, we here at Bonafide HQ don’t harp on about anything – we all feel no peel baby – and more to the point, we don’t care if your big brother is Ghandi, if your album is wiggedy-wiggedy we’ll let you know, seen?
The fact that this is coming via Delicious should give you a hint of what to expect beat-wise – the label is lauded for pushing some classic black-crack, not least The Pharcyde’s Dilla-produced Labcalifornia, and a lot of the beats on Yancey Boys hail from this honey pot of an era. As if we needed further testament to Dilla’s doo-wop adroitness, pretty much every beat on here harks back to a non-existent past and gives you the impression you’re reminiscing over an ancient classic, proving James truly was ahead of the game. Word is that John used to listen to James making beats like these from the staircase, all the while tending his creative impulses, so it comes as no surprise that the younger seems to know exactly what he wants from this first full-length outing.
Yancey Boys is above all a beautiful record; a hip-hop eulogy shirking umbrage in favour of amour. Although lyrically unprofound, Illa J obviously has a veritable caché of feelings that are no more fittingly expressed than here through his unique combination of singing and rhyming over his brother’s spacious yet rock-solid rhythms. Not always as direct as /James I know you’re right here with me/ still we might take the whole as an expression of Illa J’s love for his lost brother. That manifested then, Yancey Boys is something you can listen to with your girl, the yang to Slum Village’s yin, like Fan-tas-tic Vol.1 cold chillin’ in the bath with some essential oils and scented candles. Tracks like Everytime and Illasoul push some ridiculously soulful themes with lines like /Every time I wake up I look at you and say I’m so thankful for you/ and if there is one very minor downfall it’s that this can get a little over-sentimental at times. In their favour though, this is duly acknowledged on the skit Mr. Shakes where a sarcastic Affion Crockett introduces the bouncing DFTF (Don’t Fight The Feeling) – “I long to make love with you,” he groans in Shakespearean accent, “to a whole album by J-Dilla” - and you get the impression this could be the rationale for the whole album.
After the sunny-afternoon snare-clap climax of DFTF then, we slip into the post-orgasmic Feel Good – sampling Bacharach’s Look of Love as only Dilla knew how – again almost an antidote to the cynicism of Slum V’s take on the L-words. Frank Nitt taking time out on Alien Family to tell us why he thinks the Dewitts are “like the Jackson 5, but from Mars” further compounds the undeniable sentimentality, and the final track, Illa’s homage to his immediate family as a creative collective of Air Signs (that’s Aquarius, Libras and Geminis btw) leaves one feeling very plus.
Icing, cherry, and those silver ball things go to the cover art featuring a simple close-up portrait of John, with a tiny image of James literally forming the apple of his younger brother’s eye.
This is by no means a stone cold classic – and doubtless a few of you would prefer to wait for the inevitable instrumentals – but it’s a tight little starter for ten that you certainly wouldn’t regret owning. Furthermore it marks Illa J as a very promising talent worthy of stealing most of the letters in his big brother’s name!
John Whybrow
