The author’s take around page 237 that Jay Dee disliking people biting his technique was “small thinking”? WTF? Writing in the context of art form like hiphop where biting is (for a sizable contingent of participants) considered to be clown shit, that was…weird.

Would have liked to read more quotes on the record from Tip, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis about that Got Til It’s Gone “issue” (to be honest, I don’t know who to believe after reading the book).

I could have lived without knowing a lot of the personal details (fights with significant others, cheating, etc).

The section on European versus African music was interesting, as was the Detroit street design section (although I could see how someone else might say “hey get back Dilla” I dug it).

Not sure about all the charts and the attempt to quantify Dilla’s technique so specifically (we all know generally he is playing with time and placement of the percussion, but I doubt that he was doing it the same way on every track, which is somewhat of the impression I got from the book; as if Dilla had a lab coat on and was like “there, got that hi hat exactly three milliseconds behind the fourth measure”). I think he was sequencing free hand and the elements fell where they fell. But what do I know, I don’t make beats.

Got over a hundred pages left to read. It is a quick read tho. Great for vacation reading.