Guilty Simpson Photo: Stones Throw Records
The son and grandson of performing musicians from Detroit, Michigan, Guilty Simpson has Motor City music in his DNA. Over his 14-year recording career, he’s worked with some of underground hip hop’s most lauded production talents, but it’s his body of work with a fellow Detroit native that put his baritone raps on the map.
Simpson made his debut on ‘Strapped’, a track from 2003’s Jaylib project that teamed Madlib and J Dilla, the Detroit producer whose wonky, unquantised take on beatmaking still casts a shadow over leftfield hip hop.
The late producer was an enthusiastic champion of Guilty’s unvarnished wordplay, and their partnership yielded a run of singles, album cuts and white label releases.
Ten years after Dilla died from a rare blood disease, Guilty Simpson remains a torchbearer for his former mentor’s prodigious, inimitable output.
“The formula that he put together embodied Detroit,” he says. “He had an ear for something … he knew when to produce something, and he knew when to loop something. His ear was an instrument.
“I think the soul in his music – the Detroit soul, even if he didn’t sample Detroit artists – the elements that he was able to take and create had a Detroit feel to it, and it just hit home with me.”
Guilty Simpson talks to Sam Wicks about his relationship with the late, great Detroit producer:
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