the last word in dilla tribute mixes?

oh, definitely not. in fact, given the amount of unreleased dilla material, any idea of somehow summarising his life's work to date in an hour or two is a futile (if joyful, necessary-for-the-moment) enterprise:

j dilla leaves behind a body of work which will be loved and rediscovered for years to come. his most recent album "donuts" on february 7th, the day of his 32nd birthday. two other projects, "the shining" and "jay love japan" are completed. other production work has been completed for artists madlib, busta rhymes, ghostface killah, A.G., visionaries, truth hurts, phat kat, MF doom, skillz, and frank n dank.
link - stones throw

however, apart from my little tribute in the previous post, the number of in-depth and high quality mixtape reminiscences made for dilla in the past week serve as a mark of the respect in which he was held (see here for links to many of them). in the uk, last thursday night's deviation tribute by benji b will probably stand as one of the deepest explorations of the dilla ouevre-to-date, put together so lovingly by a DJ who genuinely rates jay dee as the greatest producer ever - and, as a result, has more than a few choice rarities to sneak in. it won't be up forever, so get it while you can.

meantime, i hear of the passing yesterday of ray barretto, the legendary latin percussionist responsible for ridiculous break-heavy dancefloor workouts like 'hard hands' and 'soul drummer' in the late 60s. then, more tragically because of his age - 31 - british soul singer lynden david hall also died this week, after a two-year battle with cancer.

fuck. mortality.

bring on spring.