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The Reason Why J Dilla Actually Hated That Q-Tip Gave Him and Slum Village His ‘Stamp of Approval’

“People automatically put us in that [Tribe] category. That was actually a category that we didn’t actually wanna be in,” Dilla told XXL in 2004.

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A cosign can radically change a career. Kanye West might not have made it without the help of Roc-a-Fella. The Neptunes needed Teddy Riley. Timbaland and Missy Elliott came from the Devante Swing tree. The examples are endless. However, sometimes, it can be a blessing and a curse. On one end, you get the industry connections and fanbase tied to these artists. On the other hand, it can be a struggle to break out as your own voice. It’s something J Dilla had to grapple with early on in his career.

Back when he was starting out, he cut his teeth on Pharcyde and late 90s-era A Tribe Called Quest records. Joining The Ummah alongside Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, it was his distinct drums and sample-chopping style that made J Dilla stand out. Meanwhile, he was also working as a part of the Detroit collective Slum Village. Naturally, Tip supported and gave his cosign accordingly.

However, in a 2004 interview with XXL, Dilla admitted that no one in Slum Village was in love with that ‘stamp of approval’ from Tip. After all, none of them really wanted to be slotted in the same category as A Tribe Called Quest. What they were all about in their lyrics was drastically different.

J Dilla and Slum Village Didn’t Want To Be Known as an Offshoot of A Tribe Called Quest

“I thought the music came off like that, but we didn’t realize that s**t then. I mean, you gotta listen to the lyrics of the s**t, n***as was talking about getting head from b*****s. It was like a n***a from Native Tongues never woulda said that s**t,” Dilla emphasized.

Ultimately, J Dilla and the rest of Slum Village just wanted to make music for the kinds of people they hung out with in Detroit. The only reason their music related to Tribe is only because they didn’t want to sound mainstream.

“It’s kinda f****d up because the audience we were trying to give to were actually people we hung around. Me, myself, I hung around regular a** Detroit cats. Not the backpack s**t that people kept putting out there like that. I mean, I ain’t never carried no goddamn backpack, but like I said, I understand to a certain extent. I guess that’s how the beats came off on some smooth type of s**t. And at that time, that’s when Ruff Ryders [was out] and there was a lot of hard s**t on the radio so our thing was we’re gonna do exactly what’s not on the radio.”

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