J Dilla’s Brother Illa J Has A Dismissive Hot Take About Kanye West

Everyone seems to have a hot take about Kanye West these days, and they became so common for so many different reasons that the more mild and non-bigotry-centric ones are now the most notable. Moreover, the late and legendary J Dilla‘s younger brother Illa J recently spoke about the Chicago artist during an interview with AnecDope (which you can find by clicking here). Specifically, he remarked on what the Detroit beatmaker would be cooking up now, which Illa thinks would be “some crazy trap beats” given his desire to listen to all kinds of rap music despite his specialties. “Even when I was younger, he would ask me what I was listening to,” he said of his brother.

Then, Illa J made a bold claim that Kanye West would not be as big as he is today if J Dilla were still alive. “That’s my opinion,” he prefaced the reasoning behind this conclusion. “I don’t think Kanye is as big as he is if my brother stayed alive. I’m sorry, Kanye needs seven producers. If you look at the credits, there’s, like, 20 producers on one track. Because it’s a thing to make beats, and then it’s a thing to produce, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, you’re making some crazy stuff. But, like, I mean, [if] we’re talking producers, man, like, Quincy Jones is still the GOAT. That’s a real music producer, you know what I mean? Most people are beatmakers, if we’re being real.”

Of course, Kanye West himself will be one of the first to tell you that J Dilla is one of the all-time greats, if not the greatest producer of all time. During a 2013 appearance on the Stones Throw Records documentary, Our Vinyl Weighs A Ton, Ye spoke on the need to honor Dilla as artists. “We gotta think, ‘If Dilla was alive, would he like this?’” he remarked. “I have to work on behalf of Dilla. The best respect that we can pay to great artists that have inspired us is to never sell out.”

Meanwhile, Illa J was previously very outspoken about how he feels that some folks are trying to take advantage of J Dilla’s legacy for their own gain. Last year, he framed this as more of a conversation around how people use Dilla’s impact to further their own goals or the relationship that they seek with Illa. It doesn’t seem like this applies to Kanye West, but it’s also easy to believe that both artists would’ve still made amazing art if they were both still around. Sadly, we’ll never know for sure, but we do know that their catalogs and artistry are worth much more than their individual careers.