J Dilla Essentials Guide: The Ummah

In 1994, while in the process of trying to secure a deal for Slum Village, Yancey bumped into one of his musical heroes, Jonathan “Q-Tip” Davis of A Tribe Called Quest. “I gave Tip a tape, and the same day he called back,” Yancey told Chairman Mao for a 1996 “Next” profile inVIBE magazine. “He was like ‘Who did these beats?’ After that shit just took off.”

Until that time, Tip handled the lion’s share of Tribe’s production, but his referral of Jay Dee to the Pharcyde had been such a success that he decided to include the Detroit producer in a new collective called the Ummah. “At the time there were a lot of production crews,” Tip explained in an interview. “There was the Goodfellas, the Trackmasters etc. We just wanted to get our shit out like that, so we tried to form the Ummah and tried to get that shit poppin’.”

Ummah is an Arabic word meaning community, brotherhood, or tribe. At the time Tip had just taken his shahada, a declaration of Sunni Muslim faith, and got Ali into Islam as well. “We were making salat [prayer] in the studio,” he told Spin in 1999. “It just became a seriousness whereas prior, there was a lightheartedness to Tribe. We didn’t take ourselves too seriously, and then I think I was guilty of taking myself way too seriously.” Tip and Phife were at odds, Tribe fans could sense something wrong with the creative chemistry on the group’s 1996 album, Beats, Rhymes, and Life. As the new recruit to the camp, Jay Dee (and guest rapper Consequence) took much of the blame for messing up the group’s vibe.

In retrospect the Ummah’s production introduced a new complexity and polish to Tribe’s sound, as heard on tracks like “1nce Again” and “Word Play.” Still it would be fair to say that the Ummah did its best work for outside clients, starting with Busta Rhymes whose solo debut,The Coming, boasted several of the crew’s beats—included an amazing unreleased Biggie collab. Jay Dee’s remixes of Busta’s first single, “Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check,” made Bussa Buss a believer—he would continue to work with the Detroit producer throughout his career. Ditto for De La Soul, who first discovered Yancey’s talents as part of the Ummah.

The group’s most infamous project was a coulda shoulda woulda situation in which they made a track for Janet Jackson—whom Tip met on the set of the film Poetic Justice—that became “Got Till It’s Gone,” which did not credit any of them. (Whether that was a bite or a straight-up jack move is a matter of debate.) The Ummah’s last major project was Q-Tip’s solo debut, Amplified. The album resulted in some chart success but further confusion about who did what.“With Ummah, just because I was the face, people would automatically assume sometimes…that I produced it or that I did the beat when it was Dilla,” Tip said later. “Dilla wanted to make sure that he got known for what he did. So I can empathize with where Dilla was at because I was at the same place, you know? I think it was a great idea to represent a unit. But from poor management to not really understanding the ramifications of it, it didn’t work to that great idea necessarily. Still, in all, I think we all were able to make some good music.”

(1996)

Although the Ummah is more often associated with Tribe and their ill-fated Janet project, the production team’s first major client was Bussa Buss. Not only did the the Dungeon Dragon enlist Jay Dee to do two outstanding remixes of his lead single “Woo Hah” (a “Bounce Remix” and a downtempo “Other Shit Remix”), he also copped four beats for his solo debut, only three of which made the final cut. The hottest of these was “Ill Vibe” f/ Q-Tip, which combines thick bass notes with a dry snare and tasty keyboard chords, with video-game-meets-sci-fi sound effects on the chorus. The hottest of the Ummah’s contributions, unfortunately, never saw the light of day: The Notorious B.I.G.’s verse on “The Ugliest” contained so many thinly veiled shots at Tupac that Busta decided to pull it from the album, wanting no parts of their increasingly serious beef.

(1996)

De La Soul’s dystopic fourth album was mostly self-produced, but the title track—while not an official Ummah production—was a Native Tongues/Jay Dee collab. As Andrew Barber pointed out in Complex’s list of the 50 Best J Dilla Songs, “The way he built an entire song around a few short seconds of Ahmad Jamal’s ‘Swahililand’ is the stuff of legend.” As with Busta, De La soon would soon become repeat customers. “Stakes Is High”was the first of many great collaborations between the Strong Island trio and the Motor City maestro.

(1996)

The Ummah’s first big showcase was easily Tribe’s least popular album, but in retrospect there are moments of brilliance. The lead single, “1nce Again,” made direct reference to fan fave “Check the Rhime,” which may have been a tactical error. But the crisp drums and interlocking vocal samples and xylophone patterns took Tribe’s production to a new level of sophistication. On “Word Play” the spare atmospherics—Fender Rhodes and whining guitar notes—provide an appropriate backdrop for Tribe’s meditation on diction. Questlove would later praise the “sloppiness” of the track’s kick drum, executed with “finesse and defiance.” The album’s highlight was the eerily propulsive “Get a Hold,” which Dilla is said to have cooked up in no more than 12 minutes.

(1996)

The Ummah’s deconstruction of the Heavies’ hit single puts the focus right where it belongs: on N’Dea Davenport’s vocals (and, yes, the Abstracti’s rap). Sprinkling some gentle strums and keys from “Dance With Me” by the Louis Hayes Group—anchored by the Detroit jazz drummer of the same name—Jay Dee adds just enough to sweeten the pot without overwhelming the main course. Like the song says, “You’re looking at a transformation.”

(1997)

One of Miss Jackson’s best loved releases, the record was a total departure from her usual pop fare, bearing Jay Dee’s trademark warm, atmospheric sound, and featuring a hot 16 by Q-Tip. There was just one problem. “We all collaborated on this track, made it happen,” Dilla explained in a 2003 Dustbusters interview. “When it came out, it said produced by someone else. Check those credits, you won’t see a Jay Dee, or a Q-Tip or anyone else.” For his part Tip went on record saying that Janet, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis did not steal the Ummah’s credit so much as bite their style: “They heard some shit that we were doing and were trying to copy it I guess.” In any case Yancey made his feelings known by releasing an even funkier official remix on Virgin Records subtitled “Jay Dee’s Revenge.”

(1998)

The Love Movement didn’t spark the same outrage as the Ummah’s first outing with ATCQ. Part of that may be due to the fact that fans knew this would be the Tribe’s last hurrah, but it was also simply a better album. The lead single, “Find a Way,” featured a clipped, supple bass line playing hide-and-seek with subtle synth atmospherics and twinkling keys, plus a freaky vocal sample that transforms some high-pitched Japanese lingo to mirror the hook of the song. And who could be mad at “Hot Sex” on a platter, especially when the beat knocks that hard? Elsewhere Phife shows off his Caribbean roots on “His Name Is Mutty Ranks” and the track for “Busta’s Lament” is a masterpiece of textural contrasts. An outtake from these sessions, “That Shit”—which surfaced years later on a Funk Flex mixtape—is the only Tribe cut to feature Jay Dee on the mix.

(1999)

Following the dissolution of A Tribe Called Quest Q-Tip made his bid for solo stardom, and also pared the Ummah down to a two-man team. Most of the production credits on Amplifiedread Fareed/Yancey, with no Ali Shaheed Muhammad. “Let’s Ride” gave a strong hint of where Jay Dee’s sound would be headed in the future: dry and heavy drumbeats, spacey sound effects, and a tantalizing guitar picking arpeggios up front. Both “Breathe and Stop” and “Vivrant Thing” were big hits, although Tribe purists called foul. Dilla revealed that the original “Breathe and Stop” was even hotter. “That was one of my craziest joints,“ he said In the Dustbusters interview. “I lost the disc and I had to re-chop the drums. I wish people could hear the original. It sounded so much different. But Tip took it as is.”