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  • » Name: Donwill
  • » Location: BKLYNATI
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  • » Bio: 1/3 of the almighty tanya morgan and 1/2 of the duo ilwil. jack of all trades, drinker of all beers and lacer of all kicks.
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Pocket Change

I met ma dukes aka J-Dilla's mom changed my life.


July 09, 2007 | Tags: tanya morgan, Detroit, ma dukes, maureen yancey

So im finally settling in and unpacking from my fourth of july weekend and the 2 shows in Detroit. I'll spare you the awesome details of how much BBQ i ate and how many fireworks i popped off and tell you about Motown.

As i previously blogged we played two shows there Cityfest and the J Dilla Tribute. No slight to Cityfest but I was really excited to play the Dilla tribute because I'm a huge fan. We get to the venue and of course the Detroit hip hop scene is in there heavy. T3, Fat Cat, Dwele and Houseshoes among others. I got to dap up everybody and meet them for the first and second times but the most important person i met that night was Maureen Yancey aka Ma Dukes.

I aint gonna sit here and lie like we hit it off and she gave me the key to the basement to let me roll thru and use Dilla's drum machine or some shit, nah. In actuality it was a very quick simple meeting but still one of the most humbling experiences in my life. I was postulating what i would say to her all day and how i would sequence the sentences and pace the words so that i didnt seem to be talkin her ear off but just you know chattin it up but all that shit flew out the window when i finally walked up to the table and spoke. I shook her hand and mumbled something about how big of an honor it was and her son and his influence and she graciously smiled and said she couldnt wait to see us perform.

Honestly i never get nervous before shows but that shit made me nervous as hell. Yall prolly think im buggin but dude is one of my biggest influences so to know im gonna be rocking for her just kinda was the icing on the cake. Factor in that im sharing the bill with people who know dilla dog personally and it almost felt like i was just showin up to somebody's family reunion askin for a hamburger on that 'im cousin pete' shit. I so just wanted to fall back and watch the show but the promoters, other artists AND ma dukes thought we needed to be on that stage or else we wouldnt have been there right? Besides, it was for dilla so I had to put on my game face.

The venue was set up to be real intimate, no real stage just a performance area and a table placed square in front of the stage. Seated at said table were Dilla's mom and dad and maybe 2 other people im not sure who the other person was. Let me be all the way honest with yall right here man. This was probably the scariest show i have ever done personally, usually im animated, jumpin around talkin to the crowd... i looked and saw ma dukes nad just kinda froze up a lil bit. The nervousness shook by the first song and i finally fell into my groove but looking into the room and seeing his mom smiling at me and nodding her head to our music and enjoying the set was probably the most gratifying thing in the world.

I caught up with her for a second after the set and again told her how appreciative i was to be able to take the stage and she smiled and looked at me and said 'are you kidding? you guys were great! thank you!'

I will never be able to say i worked with or met dilla or even that he liked my music but for some strange reason, knowing how close him and his moms were from reading/watching all the interviews i have i can honestly say i feel validated, almost as if she gave us his seal of approval. And thats fine by me.



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