J Dilla‘s estate has teamed up with Stem Player as part of a new deal that will allow fans to access rare and even unreleased Dilla tracks for a monthly fee.
For $1.94 a month, fans can listen to 20 different records from the late producer. A handful of the tracks were originally featured on Dilla’s Vol. 1 and 2 instrumental albums released in 2002 and 2003, respectively. Others, however, are never-before-heard.
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For an additional $30, fans can pre-order a cosmic spectrum green skin through Dilla’s official Stem Player page available here.
You can preview what the skin will look like via Stem’s Instagram post below:
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The Stem Player partnership arrives just ahead of a forthcoming J Dilla documentary that will premiere on Hulu and FX on Friday (April 7) at 10 p.m. ET. Presented by The New York Times, the film is described as “an intimate portrait” of the prolific and virtuoistic producer, whose legacy has only grown since his death in 2006.
With exclusive access to Dilla’s family, the documentary not only chronicles his rise to Hip Hop fame, but explores the struggle for control over his legacy that has arisen in the wake of his untimely passing.
I’m a Detroiter and I’m a fighter,” his mother, Maureen “Ma Dukes” Yancey, says in the feature, according to TV Insider. “I will stay in there and I will fight. I won’t let anybody put my son down, what I do for him down, because I’m here to lift up his music, his legacy.”
The Legacy of J Dilla is produced and directed by Christopher Frierson and Esther Dere – and it’s not the only film on the late beat wizard on the horizon. Former collaborator Questlove is executive producing a documentary called Dilla Time, adapted from Dan Charnas’ acclaimed 2022 biography Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, The Hip Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm.
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Co-directed by Summer of Soul producer Joseph Patel and Darby Wheeler, the doc “will be part biography, part musicology, and part musical meditation,” according to a press release, and is being produced in cooperation with Dilla’s estate.
