Busta Rhymes has released Dillagence II, a project assembled from previously unheard J Dilla production. The album came out on August 25 and was followed by the video for "This Woman", one of its centrepieces.
That song puts three careers in the same room, two of them posthumously. D'Angelo's vocal comes from a session with J Dilla recorded roughly two decades ago that was never finished, and it sits under Busta Rhymes' verses on production the producer left behind. Both Dilla and D'Angelo have since died, which makes the track a piece of salvage as much as a collaboration.
Hype Williams directed the video, reuniting a partnership that goes back to the rapper's most recognisable clips of the 1990s. That Grape Juice, reporting the release on August 26, called the pairing of Busta's writing, Dilla's production and D'Angelo's voice a meeting of three musical forces.
Dillagence II is the second entry in a series. The first Dillagence mixtape drew on the same well of unreleased Dilla material, and this record continues that work rather than repackaging it, with new verses written over beats that had not been heard before.
The project sits at the seam between hip-hop and rnb and soul, which is roughly where the Dilla catalogue has always lived. It follows the earlier reporting that Busta Rhymes had set Dillagence 2 for August 25 and that he was revisiting J Dilla's unfinished work on a new LP. It is now on the release calendar.
The facts
- Dillagence II was released on August 25
- The project is built around previously unheard J Dilla production
- Hype Williams directed the video for This Woman
- D'Angelo's vocal comes from an unfinished J Dilla session about two decades old
- It is the sequel to the earlier Dillagence mixtape
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