dontdiedontkillanyon
New member
Yancey’s illness, and the suddenness with which it hit, left him unable to ensure his life’s work would be well overseen. On the night of September 8, 2005, when it looked like he might not make it till morning, Yancey signed a will. Most of those around him did not know about it, though he’d once discussed the idea with Joylette Hunter, mother to one of his daughters. Brought in by his then-attorney Micheline Levine, the will named his brother, John “Illa J” Yancey, his mother, Maureen “Ma Dukes” Yancey, and his daughters, Ja’Mya Yancey and Ty-Monae Whitlow, as heirs to his estate. Artie Erck, Yancey’s accountant, was named as the estate’s executor. The Detroit producer was the first in his family to have anything of worth to bequeath. As his life grew darker he put pen to paper, not knowing that the will would interrupt his legacy rather than solidify it.
Eothen “Egon” Alapatt did not know about the will. What he knew was what Yancey had told him before he died. “This is the last record he wanted out,” Alapatt recalls, speaking from his office in northeast Los Angeles. “That to me is as important as anything. If you believe in Dilla and he wanted this out, or even if you have the most passing interest in who he was, you should defer to him and give this record a listen.”
Alapatt is an energetic and enthusiastic speaker, his love for music and Yancey apparent in his every word. He first discovered Jay Dee on the credits of The Pharcyde’s 1995 single ‘Runnin’ and decided he “had to know everything this guy did.” He began working with Yancey as general manager of LA-based label Stones Throw in the early 2000s, after Otis “Madlib” Jackson Jr. was invited to work on the MCA album. From there, Alapatt and Yancey became friends, their relationship solidified through work, spiritual kinship, and, finally, death. In early 2007, Levine called Alapatt to offer him the position of creative director of Yancey’s estate. The estate was to utilise the intellectual property and work he had left behind to repay his large debt to the IRS, accrued in part due to his illness and lack of medical insurance. After that, probate (the legal process by which a will is proved in court) would close and the estate would be handed to the heirs. But Yancey’s business dealings had never been simple in life, and that bad luck dogged him in death.
At first, many assumed Yancey’s mother was the executor of his estate. Instead, Alapatt was told that no money from his work could be given to her directly unless it was a gift. By then, “Donuts had gone from being an idea to very profitable,” he says. The record had saved Stones Throw, which was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. There was money to disburse to the heirs, but doing so through the estate would lock it up. Compounding matters, the process of caring for Yancey had left Maureen broke, and it was becoming clear that Erck, the accountant and executor, had no intention to help. As general manager of the label, Alapatt made the only choice he could. “Erck had an adversarial relationship with Maureen, [so] Stones Throw continued making payments to her because Jay’s allegiance had made us profitable and we believed in filling the void left by his death,” he says. “I ran the company day to day. I cut the cheques. It was something I believed we should do, and we did it.”
One of the first things Alapatt looked into as creative director was the possibility of releasing the lost MCA album, which he’d begun working on the month after Yancey died by securing the master tapes through Maureen. Erck confirmed that legal documents had freed Yancey from his label contract, allowing the estate to use the album. As work continued, Alapatt realised Erck was more “busy thinking about how he and his cronies could make money” from Yancey than building a strong legacy. He remembers how “Artie, Micheline and those people were at the complete opposite end of the understanding Dilla had hoped they would have.” This new and precarious relationship soon came to a head after Alapatt asked the wrong questions about payments to the heirs and Erck and Levine tried to push him out of his role. A legal battle ensued, culminating in February 2009 with a victory for Alapatt and the heirs. Erck left his position and a new independent executor, Alex Borden, was appointed by the state of California.
But while lawyers did the dirty deeds they are handsomely paid to do, life carried on. February, the month of Yancey’s birth and death, had become a yearly focus for worldwide tributes and celebrations. Maureen, shut out of the estate, set up the J. Dilla Foundation as a non-profit organisation to help fund progressive music education programs. In April 2008, an unfinished version of the MCA album was leaked online and bootlegged on vinyl under the name Pay Jay, leading Erck to publish an ad in Billboard that summer stating he was the only person able to authorise use of Yancey’s intellectual property. By early 2011, when Alapatt returned to his position as creative director, there’d already been two posthumous albums. Momentum had been lost and Dilla’s legacy was a mess.
The goal for Alapatt, helped by the estate’s new attorney Sheila Bowers, who had worked with Stones Throw and Yancey before, became simple: set up a functioning, profitable company to warehouse all of Dilla’s intellectual property, so that when probate closed it could be given to his heirs. That company was Pay Jay.
Photography by: B+
Eothen “Egon” Alapatt did not know about the will. What he knew was what Yancey had told him before he died. “This is the last record he wanted out,” Alapatt recalls, speaking from his office in northeast Los Angeles. “That to me is as important as anything. If you believe in Dilla and he wanted this out, or even if you have the most passing interest in who he was, you should defer to him and give this record a listen.”
Alapatt is an energetic and enthusiastic speaker, his love for music and Yancey apparent in his every word. He first discovered Jay Dee on the credits of The Pharcyde’s 1995 single ‘Runnin’ and decided he “had to know everything this guy did.” He began working with Yancey as general manager of LA-based label Stones Throw in the early 2000s, after Otis “Madlib” Jackson Jr. was invited to work on the MCA album. From there, Alapatt and Yancey became friends, their relationship solidified through work, spiritual kinship, and, finally, death. In early 2007, Levine called Alapatt to offer him the position of creative director of Yancey’s estate. The estate was to utilise the intellectual property and work he had left behind to repay his large debt to the IRS, accrued in part due to his illness and lack of medical insurance. After that, probate (the legal process by which a will is proved in court) would close and the estate would be handed to the heirs. But Yancey’s business dealings had never been simple in life, and that bad luck dogged him in death.
At first, many assumed Yancey’s mother was the executor of his estate. Instead, Alapatt was told that no money from his work could be given to her directly unless it was a gift. By then, “Donuts had gone from being an idea to very profitable,” he says. The record had saved Stones Throw, which was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. There was money to disburse to the heirs, but doing so through the estate would lock it up. Compounding matters, the process of caring for Yancey had left Maureen broke, and it was becoming clear that Erck, the accountant and executor, had no intention to help. As general manager of the label, Alapatt made the only choice he could. “Erck had an adversarial relationship with Maureen, [so] Stones Throw continued making payments to her because Jay’s allegiance had made us profitable and we believed in filling the void left by his death,” he says. “I ran the company day to day. I cut the cheques. It was something I believed we should do, and we did it.”
One of the first things Alapatt looked into as creative director was the possibility of releasing the lost MCA album, which he’d begun working on the month after Yancey died by securing the master tapes through Maureen. Erck confirmed that legal documents had freed Yancey from his label contract, allowing the estate to use the album. As work continued, Alapatt realised Erck was more “busy thinking about how he and his cronies could make money” from Yancey than building a strong legacy. He remembers how “Artie, Micheline and those people were at the complete opposite end of the understanding Dilla had hoped they would have.” This new and precarious relationship soon came to a head after Alapatt asked the wrong questions about payments to the heirs and Erck and Levine tried to push him out of his role. A legal battle ensued, culminating in February 2009 with a victory for Alapatt and the heirs. Erck left his position and a new independent executor, Alex Borden, was appointed by the state of California.
But while lawyers did the dirty deeds they are handsomely paid to do, life carried on. February, the month of Yancey’s birth and death, had become a yearly focus for worldwide tributes and celebrations. Maureen, shut out of the estate, set up the J. Dilla Foundation as a non-profit organisation to help fund progressive music education programs. In April 2008, an unfinished version of the MCA album was leaked online and bootlegged on vinyl under the name Pay Jay, leading Erck to publish an ad in Billboard that summer stating he was the only person able to authorise use of Yancey’s intellectual property. By early 2011, when Alapatt returned to his position as creative director, there’d already been two posthumous albums. Momentum had been lost and Dilla’s legacy was a mess.
The goal for Alapatt, helped by the estate’s new attorney Sheila Bowers, who had worked with Stones Throw and Yancey before, became simple: set up a functioning, profitable company to warehouse all of Dilla’s intellectual property, so that when probate closed it could be given to his heirs. That company was Pay Jay.
Photography by: B+
