Hip-hop

This week's hip-hop CD reviewed

JAY DILLA 

Jay Stay Paid Nature Sounds ****

The J Dilla industry continues to roll. The cult producer is in danger of turning into hip-hop’s Jeff Buckley, such is the number of compilations with unreleased cuts hitting the racks since he died in 2006. This avalanche coincides with a growing awareness of the Detroiter’s work and the unique contours of his sound. Jay Stay Paid is one of the more considered releases, Pete Rock collating and cleaning up a slew of unreleased breaks from the producer who worked with the likes of Slum Village, A Tribe Called Quest, Common, De La Soul, the Pharcyde and Q Tip. Aside from trademark washes of electronic noises, eerie samples and warm, evocative instrumental snatches, Rock also calls on such Dilla-friendly MCs as Black Thought and Mobb Deep’s Havoc to lend a voice. But Jay Stay Paid works best when those eerie, leftfield swirls and stabs simply saunter unadorned from the stereo. www.myspace.com/jdilla

Download tracks : On Stilts, Kjay and We’re Out, Make It Fast 

JIM CARROLL