Dilla Stories from Stones Throw

Excerpt From Stones Throw's The story behind some of J Dilla's greatest productions

TRE From The Pharcyde on RUNNIN

We were looking for Q-Tip to do some tracks for us. He couldn't do what needed to be done, but he said, "You can check my boy," end we were like, "Okay who is it?" He was like, "Jay Dee." We didn't even believe Jay Dee existed. Q-Tip's name is Jonathan Davis, we thought it was Q-Tip pretending that was his little spin-off name. Q-Tip brought a bunch of beats over, we heard "Runnin" and "Drop," it was some incredible shit. Jay Dee came to Los Angeles and he had his SP1200 and he would just flip these beats like nobody's business. This kid couldn't fuck up a beat. I gave him one of Vince Guiraldi's Snoopy loops like, "I always wanted to do something with this," end he flipped this song called "Splattitorium" end I was like, "Of course." Fat Lip and I fought physically over the way Jay Dee originally programmed "Runnin'." Fat Lip went in and reprogrammed every straight beat because Fat Up was all about having the beats a certain way. I fought for it to be the way that it was because I was a stickler about people's creative input - that's what we hired him for. If I didn't stop that and physically fight this guy for it, "Runnin'" would have been a different song all together on a spiritual level. SLIM KID TRE