Leave J Dilla’s corpse alone

One of the few bright sides of never having much more than enough money to keep my Jew landlord off my back and to stay lit on Budweiser is that I don't really have to sweat what would happen if I was to die all of a sudden.

Like, if someone was to reanimate Pimp C, and he came after me. (Excellent idea for a horror film, btw. Have the GZA start working on a script.)

Probably the most valuable thing I own is a Nintendo Wii, and who doesn't already have a Nintendo Wii? Even poor kids in the ghetto have a Nintendo Wii - which would of course give the lie to the idea that anyone is truly poor in this country, and hence invalidate something like 95% of the rap music that's been created in the past 10 years or so. (e.g. "I started selling crack for a living because my father ran out on my ignorant-ass mother, and she couldn't afford to buy me name brand tennis shoes. Boo hoo, poor me.")

But that's a topic for another discussion.

J Dilla, on the other hand, had an entire catalog of incredible hip-hop beats (that hardly anyone actually liked until a couple of years ago), not to mention his name, and his likeness, and the fact that he died at such a tragically young age of some mystery ailment. (Lord knows I've been to my share of "mystery funerals" over the years. Not to suggest anything untoward about the late, great J Dilla. I'm just saying.) If somebody wanted to, they could probably use any combination of the above to make a shiteload of money from some shit that hardly has anything to do with J Dilla.

Indeed, that's apparently what some people have been doing, and someone's pissed about that shit. We're just not sure who it is. Supposedly, the executor of J Dilla's estate, a fellow named Artie Fufkin or some such, recently took out a full-page ad in Billboard going at mofos for making money using J Dilla's music and what have you without going through the proper channels, i.e. this guy. I only heard about it last night on the podcast of Peter Rosenberg's Sunday night show on Hot 97, and my mp3 player isn't so good about fast forwarding through a two hour-long podcast, otherwise I'd provide you with more details.

But that was basically the gist of it. It mentions that Dilla has two young children, though it doesn't say for certain who it was that put this guy up to this. Both of the kids have these ultra-ghetto names, ridonkulous to the point that they better hope those royalty checks keep rolling in for as long as they possibly can. Also, if they're anything like their father, lord knows they need to eat. (My bad.) Furthermore, the ad doesn't go so far as to name the offending parties, though it makes it a point to note that this guy Fufkin is the only person with legal authority to sign off on any J Dilla business dealings, not anyone else in his family or anything.

Rosenberg's gonna look into this (I'd look into it myself, but I lack the resources), but he suggested that this might be a matter of Dilla's baby's mother trying to cake up - since, presumably, she would be the one in charge of his seeds - and that there might be some beef between her and Dilla's mother - hence the ad making it a point to note that no one else in Dilla's family is allowed to make business decisions on his behalf.

Keep in mind that, as of right now, this is mostly speculation. But if this is the case, I wonder if this woman is really that hard up, or if it's just that she sees an opportunity for herself. She lucked out and had this poor bastard's children, and now she's gonna try to rape his corpse for all that it's worth. (Maybe this was even her plan along. The guy had been sick for quite some time. How old are these kids?) Keep in mind that I used to work at K-Mart, so I know how cheap kids clothes are. For all we know, she could be using this money to buy cocaine, or to go on vacation with some other guy, working on his joint in a hot tub, while Dilla's moms is at home trying to figure out how she's gonna pay for his hospital bills.

I'm not saying that's definitely what's going on here. I'm just saying. If you're a guy, and you think you might die soon, you might want to consider giving control of your estate to your mother. If your mom's not around, you might even want to consider giving it to another guy. I don't think a guy would do another guy like that, unless he absolutely deserved it.