The music world honoured the 3rd annual Dilla Day on February 7, 2014, which would also have been James Yancy’s 40th birthday if he were still on this mortal coil. Celebrations included the Dilla Day Detroit concert, which featured De La Soul, Slum Village, Phife, DJ Premier and Pete Rock, amongst others. Mixtapes and podcasts dedicated to Jay Dee’s music were streamed, memorial t-shirts were proudly worn and Twitter was filled with gushing dedications to one of hip-hop’s most beloved fallen soldiers. Even a hateful prick such as myself can’t deny that this Dilla character had a knack for unorthodox drum programming and chopping samples, but I do take umbrage at the fact that this musical memorial fetishism seems to exclude a number of deceased members of the hip-hop community who contributed as much (if not way, way more) than Slum Village’s favourite son:

DJ SCOTT LA ROCK

Social worker by day, local DJ celebrity by night, Scott La Rock helped a homeless young KRS-One get his shit together and enlisted the help of Ultramagnetic MCs producer Ced Gee so that they could create Criminal Minded on Ced’s SP-12 sampler. The album changed the rap game forever with timeless classics such as ‘South Bronx’, ‘The Bridge Is Over’, ‘Poetry’ and the AC/DC-driven ‘Dope Beat’. He died while trying to help out junior Boogie Down Productions crew member D-Nice, who had been caught messing with somebody else’s girl. We can only imagine how By All Means Necessary would have sounded like had he lived to complete it.

HEAVY D

The Hevster paved the way for overweight rappers to be accepted as not completely hideous to the opposite sex, with songs like ‘The Overweight Lover’s In The House’, boosted sales of transparent raincoats 5,000% with his international smash hit ‘Now That We’ve Found Love’ and was a big part of Teddy Riley’s new jack swing invasion of the late ’80s/early ’90s. Not to mention that he was the first rapper to ever collab with Michael Jackson (‘Jam’). And he convinced Andre Harrell to hire Puff Daddy over at Uptown Records, which Hev would also run following Harrell’s move to Motown.

GURU

As half of beloved rap duo Gang Starr, who gave the world six albums during their time together, Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal was a role model for every New York transplant hoping to be one day be embraced by the Rotten Apple as one of their own, despite his Boston heritage. (Let’s not forget that DJ Premier originally hailed from Texas, either.) GURU’s Ill Kid record label helped springboard the careers of Jeru The Damaja, Group Home and Big Shug, while his own laconic rhyme style proved that “It’s mostly the voice.”

EAZY-E

What Eazy lacked in natural ability, the studio magic of Dr. Dre and pen of Ice Cube was able to compensate for in spades. What this guy did have was personality, and the vision to deliver us “the world’s most dangerous group.” If you were listening to music when Straight Outta Compton dropped, it was impossible not to be affected by the sonic intensity and ultra-aggressive raps. Previously, his Eazy-Duz-It solo LP had laid the foundations for every cashed-up drug dealer with a twisted sense of humour to become a rap star. Despite what you may think, that was actually a great thing. He also co-founded Ruthless Records, which was one of the biggest independent rap labels of its day, even though he was eventually swindled by his business partner and manager Jerry Heller.

COWBOY

Although Coke La Rock was technically the first guy to grab the mic during a hip-hop set, Keith ‘Cowboy’ Wiggins is widely recognised as being the first Master of Ceremonies, having coined the phrase “hip-hop” and was responsible for canonical call-and-response routines such “Throw ya hands in the air!’, “Everybody say ‘ho!’” and many, many more. He was the first to rap for Grandmaster Flash at the park jams, and the opening of ‘Rapper’s Delight’ was ripped off from one of his famous routines. Sadly he became another statistic in the crack epidemic of 1989.

JAMES BROWN

No James Brown, no hip-hop. Period. DJ Kool Herc himself credits Mr Brown as the primary inspiration for rap music, and yet beyond the thousands of ‘Funky Drummer’ samples featured in ’80s hip-hop, the man’s legacy seems to be grossly under-appreciated. While there’s a statue of the great man in his hometown of Augusta, Georgia, and the mayor of Cincinnati declared December 22 to be ‘James Brown Day’ in 2007, I find it puzzling that more isn’t done to celebrate his incredible contributions to popular music, and in particular for inadvertently creating hip-hop. I can’t even begin to do justice to JB’s legacy in terms of both his musical, political and social impact here, but I have no interest in honouring anybody until there’s a universally recognised ‘James Brown Week’ celebrated every year by the music media.