Busta Rhymes’ new album full of previously unreleased J Dilla beats also features a posthumous feature from D’Angelo.
Rhymes made Dillagence II out of almost 300 unreleased beats that Dilla gave him before the legendary producer died in 2006. One of those beats came from a session Dilla and D’Angelo did about 20 years ago that never materialized into a proper project. “They started something and it just never got finished,” Busta recently told The New York Times. “I love both of them, so I just want to do my part in delivering in that way — not just for the culture, but for them and for all of us.”
What the pair made together now serves as the gentle chorus on “This Woman,” featuring what appears to be a scratch vocal of D’Angelo interpolating Sister Nancy’s legendary dancehall track “Bam Bam.” “This woman, never troubled no one / But if you trouble this woman, it will be a…” D’Angelo croons in his immaculate falsetto before trailing off into a version of “Bam Bam”’s famous, wordless hook. Of course, even a D’Angelo scratch vocal makes for a pristine chorus, especially over a Dilla groove elegantly textured with prickly guitars and burbling marimbas.
“This Woman” will also get an official music video, directed by Hype Williams. The visual is slated to drop later today at 12 p.m. ET.
Though they were friends for decades, Busta and D’Angelo never released any music together while D’Angelo was alive. After D’Angelo died last October, Busta released a tribute song, “Magic,” in which he rapped about meeting D’Angelo for the first time while in the studio with A Tribe Called Quest, and celebrated the power of D’s music and life.
“I feel like the Earth shifted when D came to do music,” Busta said in an accompanying interview with Okayplayer. “He was the embodiment of some shit that was a complete balance of what our ancestors created, to where he took it. There’s nothing under the sun that hasn’t already been done. But it’s a whole other thing to make it your own and combine what has already been done with what hasn’t been done yet.”
Along with D’Angelo on “This Woman,” Dillagence II boasts an array of features across its 19 tracks, including Lil Wayne, Common, Big Sean, Anderson .Paak, Ludacris, and Jon Batiste.
