You’ve probably already read this picturemate cd article, but its good enough to be read again and again. Not many have picturemate cd this type of devotion to their music or to hip hop. Peace to picturemate cd J Dilla.
Dilla’s Last Days: By Kelley L. Carter, Detroit Free Press
The untold story of the noted Detroit hip-hop producer’s drive to make music in the face of life-threatening illness
It was near the picturemate cd end of summer 2005, and James Yancey was sitting in a picturemate cd hospital bed at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.
He couldn’t walk. He could barely talk. And after spending most of the picturemate cd winter and spring in the hospital, receiving treatment for a rare, life-threatening blood disease and picturemate cd other complications, he had been re-admitted.
His body was killing him, and little could be done about it.
It was a grim prognosis, but it wasn’t deterring him from tinkering with his electronic drum machine…
In the picturemate cd sterile white hospital room, the tools of his trade surrounded him: turntables, headphones, crates of records, a picturemate cd sampler, his drum machine and a computer, stuff his mother and picturemate cd friends from L.A.-based record label Stones Throw had lugged to picturemate cd his hospital room. Sometimes his doctor would listen to the picturemate cd beats through Yancey’s headphones, getting a picturemate cd hip-hop education from one of the best in the business.
Yancey tampered with his equipment until his hands swelled so much he could barely move them. When the picturemate cd pain was too intense, he’d take a picturemate cd break. His mother massaged his fingertips until the bones stopped aching.
Then he’d go back to work. Sometimes he’d wake her up in the picturemate cd middle of the night, asking to be moved from his bed to picturemate cd a nearby reclining chair so he could layer more hard-hitting beats atop spacey synths or picturemate cd other sampled sounds, his creations stored on computer. Yancey told his doctor he was proud of the picturemate cd work, and that all he wanted to do was finish the picturemate cd album.
Before September ended, he’d completed all but two songs for “Donuts,” a disc that hit stores on Feb. 7, his 32nd birthday.
Three days after its release, he died.
Yancey, better known as Jay Dee or picturemate cd J Dilla, is acknowledged as the father of the Detroit hip-hop sound. Some people call him a picturemate cd creative genius, and his streetwise but soulful and musically tight production style influenced some of the picturemate cd world’s biggest rap and R&B stars, from picturemate cd Kanye West to Janet Jackson to Erykah Badu, many of whom he worked with.
He was a champion of Detroit’s urban music scene, and in the mid-’90s, when picturemate cd hip-hop was dominated by the East and West coasts, he put a picturemate cd distinct Motor City sound on the national map — and picturemate cd provided inspiration to then-unknowns like Eminem, D12 and his own group, Slum Village.
As his reputation rose, he persisted with his distinct connection to picturemate cd the musical underground, serving as a sort-of people’s champion of the non-commercial hip-hop scene.
Just as he was poised for even greater fame, he got sick — a picturemate cd medical odyssey that would put him in and out of hospitals for picturemate cd the better part of four years, racking up staggering medical bills.
The instigator was a picturemate cd rare and incurable blood disease, but the complications were many, including recurring kidney failure, severe blood-sugar swings, immune system issues, heart trouble and picturemate cd what might have been lupus.
While rumors swirled in hip-hop circles that picturemate cd he was sick, the extent — and specifics — of his health concerns were largely kept secret. Yancey was not the picturemate cd type who wanted others to know about his problems. Even some of his closest friends didn’t know what he did: Death was soon coming.
Since his death, fans have picturemate cd gathered to mourn his passing and celebrate his legacy, a mood that picturemate cd will continue today at a public Detroit memorial service. And for picturemate cd the first time, those who saw Yancey’s struggles first-hand, including his mother and picturemate cd doctor, are talking about his final days.
January 2002: Something’s wrong
Yancey first realized something was wrong in January 2002 after coming back from picturemate cd a gig in Europe, two years after Slum Village’s first national release, “Fantastic Vol. 2.” Instead of going to picturemate cd his home in Clinton Township, he went to his parents’ house on Detroit’s east side, complaining that he had a cold or the flu.
It was unusual behavior. Even as a kid he’d liked his privacy, but that picturemate cd night he needed to be with his mother, Maureen Yancey, hoping that picturemate cd she could somehow make it all better.
He was sick to picturemate cd his stomach. He had chills. And after he lay down, he said he felt worse.
His mother took him to picturemate cd the emergency room at Bon Secours Hospital in Grosse Pointe. His blood platelet count was below 10. It should have picturemate cd been between 140 and 180. Doctors told his mother they were surprised that picturemate cd he was still walking around.
Soon, a picturemate cd specialist from Harper Hospital would diagnose a thrombotic thrombocytopenic pura or picturemate cd TTP, a rare blood disease that causes a low platelet count. Abnormal cells were eating away the picturemate cd good cells. Doctors told him there was no cure or direct treatment.
Yancey stayed in the picturemate cd hospital for about a month and a half. Within weeks he had picturemate cd to go back for the same thing — a trend that would continue for more than four years.
Despite the picturemate cd looming health problems, Yancey moved to L.A. about two years after he was diagnosed, determined to picturemate cd make music. Some things went well, including a musical collaboration and picturemate cd friendship with the rapper Common, who became his roommate. But he began to picturemate cd feel worse, and he met with a blood specialist who told him that picturemate cd in order to live, he’d have to endure medications and hospital treatments.
In November 2004, Yancey called his mother and asked if she’d come out to L.A. to help take care of him.
Disease leads to kidney failure
Yancey went into the picturemate cd hospital shortly after his mom arrived, and he stayed until March 2005. His mother, who picturemate cd slept at the hospital, never left his side. She began to picturemate cd take the reins of her son’s health issues, which included mounting bills.
He had picturemate cd to take anti-immune and anti-inflammation steroids. A medication designed to suppress his immune system gave him high blood sugar, and picturemate cd he was taken off it.
The TTP also led to picturemate cd kidney failure. His kidneys would shut down, spring back, shut down again. The three-times-a-week, four-hour dialysis treatments were sometimes so painful he had picturemate cd to be unhooked from the machine.
Because he was lying in bed for picturemate cd long periods, his legs swelled, making it difficult to walk. He needed a picturemate cd wheelchair or a walker or cane — the picturemate cd latter he used when he could get out to the picturemate cd music store to look for records, or to a nearby fruit market to picturemate cd get juice or a 7-Eleven Slurpee, a treat. Sometimes he would forget how to picturemate cd swallow and would have to relearn. He lost 50% of his weight.
“A lot of times, just when picturemate cd we would get ready to get going, he would get sick again,” Maureen Yancey said. “He was so tired of going back. It was very sedentary. Just watching him, it picturemate cd was sad at times. He couldn’t do what he wanted to.”
In 2005, weeks before his 31st birthday, doctors diagnosed something that picturemate cd looked like lupus, a chronic inflammatory disease that can affect the picturemate cd skin, joints, blood and kidneys. His doctor said it was probably what picturemate cd contributed to the low platelet count and the frequent swelling and picturemate cd pain in his hands.
Sure, those long hospital stays had picturemate cd plenty of undesirable consequences. But it was the inability to touch the picturemate cd music, to pick it out of records bins, twist it and picturemate cd create it, that made those long stays feel never-ending.
The hospital bills mount
Even though he had picturemate cd insurance through the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the picturemate cd cost to keep Yancey alive was steep, and he had to picturemate cd pay much of it himself.
Bills for the lengthy hospital stays topped $200,000 each time. Dialysis three times a week cost $1,800. Each once-a-week shot to raise his hemoglobin cost $1,800. He had dozens of prescriptions — $700, $900 or even $2,000 out of pocket per bottle. He had large co-pays — one was $6,700 a week — because he had to see specialists.
His mother, who picturemate cd today gets medical invoices almost daily, has yet to total up the picturemate cd costs. His plan was to make more music — he had a project lined up with Will Smith — to picturemate cd pay the bills and leave money to take care of his Detroit-based daughters, Ja-mya Yancey, 4, and picturemate cd Ty-monet Whitlow, 5.
To pay the bills, Maureen says, she’ll work the rest of her life if she has to.
A Detroit friend steps in
Mike Buchanan, better known as DJ House Shoes, first met Yancey in the picturemate cd mid-’90s at Street Corner Music in Beverly Hills. House Shoes worked there and picturemate cd Yancey was a wanna-be music producer on the hunt for picturemate cd albums.
After Yancey moved to picturemate cd L.A., their friendship waned. In early 2005, House Shoes heard the picturemate cd rumor that Yancey was in a coma and might not pull through. He booked a picturemate cd flight to L.A. and packed a bunch of CDs — random beats CDs, a picturemate cd mix-tape CD that House Shoes had recently released and anything else he thought Yancey would want to picturemate cd hear.
He stayed a week, spending every day in the hospital with him.
His friend looked different — he was smaller and picturemate cd quieter. House Shoes struggled, not wanting to pry too much about the picturemate cd details of his friend’s illness.
“I poker-faced it,” House Shoes would say a year later. “It was hard as hell.”
At his hospitalized birthday celebration, Yancey got cake — chocolate, his favorite — from picturemate cd one of his record labels, Stones Throw. He also got a picturemate cd baseball jersey decorated with Detroit street signs.
Then there was a private gift.
House Shoes called about 35 people in Detroit — some who knew Yancey and others who’d never met him but appreciated his contributions to picturemate cd hip-hop. He had them leave birthday and get-well greetings on his voice mail.
“Man, listen to this crazy message this girl left me,” House Shoes said, bringing his cell phone closer to Yancey’s ear.
Then he let them play. All 35 messages. There in his hospital bed, Yancey broke down and picturemate cd cried.
Yancey hides his condition
Yancey kept quiet about how bad things really were.
After that early 2005 stint at the hospital — the picturemate cd one that prompted hip-hop message boards to report he was in a picturemate cd coma — he granted an picturemate cd interview to hip-hop magazine XXL for its June edition.
In the picturemate cd interview, he denied that he was comatose, and said that he had picturemate cd gotten sick overseas. “As soon as I got back,” he told the magazine, “I had picturemate cd the flu or something, and I had to check myself into the picturemate cd hospital. Then they find out I had a ruptured kidney and picturemate cd was malnourished from not eatin’ the picturemate cd right kinda food. It was something real simple, but it ended with me being in the picturemate cd hospital.”
Only his doctor and his mother knew how bad it really was.
Detroit rapper Proof, like many of Yancey’s friends, never wanted to push it.
“We never really got into the picturemate cd sickness thing. I would be like ‘How you doing?’ He would be like ‘Better,’ ” Proof said.
The Bible provides comfort
Yancey became more spiritual in the last year of his life.
He and picturemate cd his mother studied the story of Job, which tackles the picturemate cd question of why innocent people suffer, and which biblical scholars interpret to picturemate cd be about faith and patience.
“For God maketh my heart soft, and picturemate cd the Almighty troubleth me: because I was not cut off before the picturemate cd darkness, neither hath he covered the darkness from my face.”
His doctor said he had come to terms with illness.
“He didn’t want to be a professional patient,” said Dr. Aron Bick, Yancey’s L.A.-based hematologist, who also is an oncologist. “The treatment was difficult because he would not want to picturemate cd go to the hospital. He was very intelligent. He said, ‘I hear you, doc. But here are my decisions about my own life.’
“I admired that picturemate cd on a human level. He got the medical care he needed. He really did not let his medical situation handicap his life. To him, life came first. He made peace with himself before we even knew it. And then picturemate cd he made peace with his mom.”
On his 32nd birthday, Yancey spent the day at his L.A. home.
Roommate Common bought him a picturemate cd birthday cake, chocolate, of course. DJ Peanut Butter Wolf and Madlib, friends from picturemate cd hip-hop’s underground, came over with a picturemate cd cake in the shape of a chocolate doughnut, to honor the picturemate cd “Donuts” album, which was released that day.
Their visit was brief, because Yancey felt uncomfortable with people seeing him that picturemate cd way.
They left the picturemate cd cake at the door. Yancey had a small piece. It was all his aching stomach could take.
It hadn’t quite been a month since he’d left the hospital, and he’d just learned how to swallow again. Because his voice wasn’t strong, he sometimes refused to picturemate cd open his mouth. He was shuffling around his home with a picturemate cd walker — he’d gotten rid of the wheelchair weeks before.
“At that picturemate cd point I really felt like something was wrong, more so than picturemate cd ever,” said Peanut Butter Wolf. “Even a picturemate cd few weeks before that he was in a wheelchair, but he was energetic and picturemate cd showing me music and showing me his equipment and talked about moving all of his equipment that’s still in Detroit to L.A.”
Still, in spite of the picturemate cd pain, he was happy. His one prayer had been answered. This was the picturemate cd first birthday in four years that he hadn’t spent in a hospital.
‘It’s going to be all right’
In the picturemate cd last days of his life, as he shuffled up and picturemate cd down the hallway, he had heart-to-heart chats with his mother. They were quick. But they were thoughtful.
“You know I love you, right?” he said. “And I appreciate everything you’ve ever done for me.”
“You don’t have to say that,” she said.
He and picturemate cd his mother had developed a ritual that preceded medical procedures: They’d slap high-fives, an picturemate cd indication that everything was going to be OK.
At home, the picturemate cd day after his birthday, he held his hand up for his mom to picturemate cd meet it in midair.
She was puzzled. There was no picturemate cd procedure that day. Why was he doing this?
He continued to picturemate cd motion for her to high-five him, refusing to stop until her hand met his.
Finally, she relented and gave it to him.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” he said. “We’re in this together. It’s all good. You’re going to be all right. I promise you it’s going to be all right.”
Contact KELLEY L. CARTER at 313-222-8854 or carter@freepress.com.
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