Fantastic, Vol. 2 – Slum Village

This is the second album from Slum Village, recorded in 1997 and 1998, but released on June 13th, 2000. During this time, J Dilla was expanding his profile as a legendary producer, all the while building up anticipation for Vol 2.

This is coming out of Dilla’s The Ummah era, a legendary production team consisting of Dilla along with Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad from A Tribe Called Quest. Listen to a mix here.

“Fantastic Vol. 2 was life changing” – Questlove

Go track by track and explore these iconic bass lines below. Each song is presented 4 ways: original song vs re-recorded play along track and sheet music vs waveform. A signature of Dilla’s production was that he loved to play with time and spacing. As a result, classical sheet music is not always to depict Dilla’s rhythmic ideas. Therefore we included pictures of the waveform with yellow markers to indicate where the bass notes fall ahead or behind grid.

01. Intro

“It’s fantastic!”. A terrific intro track with a smooth and sharp bassline under a flowing keyboard. The track ends with a short looped sample of Phife Dawg saying “Slum Village” from A Tribe Called Quest’s “Butter” off of The Low End Theory.
BPM: 93

02. Conant Gardens

Conant Gardens is the northeast Detroit neighborhood where Dilla grew up and where Slum Village was founded. According to whosampled.com, this song sampled 8 different tracks ranging from “A Tribute To Wes” by Little Beaver for the bass line loop throughout, to A Tribe Called Quest’s “Award Tour” for that “Motown!” vocal sample in the first few seconds.
BPM: 94

03. I Don’t Know (feat. Jazzy Jeff)

In this song, Slum Village cleverly spins the James Brown sample into the lyrics of the verses, giving it a odd chopped up feel to match the Dilla-swung bass line. The main sample is from Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell on his song “É Isso Aí”. A song, one might think, that could not be further away from anything hip-hop.
But Dilla finds a way.
BPM: 91

Notice how every other bass note is ahead of the beat. This creates a very interesting swing feel. The same phrase repeats throughout the song but Dilla stops the beat in very interesting places, cutting off the bass throughout the song.

04. Jealousy

J Dilla sampled the main staggering keyboard part from this Bill Evans Trio cut. The entire song has a swirling stand up bass in the background of Bill Evans electric keyboard sound. This is one of those samples that showcases J Dilla’s unique ear, listening to the entire song and finding the perfect sample right in the last minute.
BPM: 98

05. Climax

BPM: 96

06. Hold Tight (feat. Q-Tip)

This track features a guest spot by the one and only Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest. In the second half of his verse Tip gives shout outs to his friends, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Phife from Tribe, D’Angelo, and the members of Slum Village. “Jay Dee flip another beat for me”
BPM: 97

from 00:37-1:10

07. Tell Me (feat. D’Angelo)

D’Angelo guest spots this track on the hook.
BPM: 90

08. What’s It All About (feat. Busta Rhymes)

Busta Rhymes leaves a ferocious verse on this SV track. This song has a funky, disco feel, sampling this Alicia Meyers song, which is where this bass line originates.
BPM: 100

The actual recording is an octave lower than the play along bass track. The same bass lick is repeated through the song

09. Forth And Back (feat. Kurupt)

This song was originally on the original Fantastic, Vol. 1 but for this Vol. 2 remix they recruited Philly MC Kurupt.
BPM: 102

10. Untitled/Fantastic

Untitled:

Part one of Untitled/Fantastic.
BPM: 91

Fantastic:

Part two of Untitled/Fantastic starting at 3:06
BPM: 90

11. Get Dis Money

This track contains an Iconic 7-bar Herbie Hancock sample from his 1979 album, Sunlight. Click here to watch Thundercat talk about how he showed Herbie Hancock this legendary sample for the first time. Interestingly enough, Dilla also sampled the first track of Sunlight for that talk box outro of track 09, Forth and Back. On this track the bass is actually tuned 50 cents up, so the first note for example lies halfway between C and C#.
BPM: 97

12. Raise It Up

Dilla samples a strange synth arpeggio from a 1998 house track from French DJ/producer (and one half of Daft Punk) Thomas Bangalter.
BPM: 95

13. Once Upon A Time (feat. Pete Rock)

Pete Rock not only gives SV a verse for this track, but also co-produces it with Dilla.
BPM: 92

Sheet music and play-along track for the first 16 bars

14. Players

In this iconic sample flip, Dilla takes a 1974 four-jazz acapella cut singing the name “Clair” and, with slowing and chopping, makes it sound like “players”.
BPM: 93

15. Eyes Up

For the Bass, sometimes less is best.
BPM: 93

16. 2U 4U

This track samples a D’Angelo song, “Jonz In My Bonz”, from his debut album Brown Sugar.
BPM: 95

This waveform shows two bars of the four bar phrase, the same rhythm is repeated through the song

17. Cb4

In this one, SV raps about trying to get that nut.
BPM: 95

18. Go Ladies

Dilla subtly doubles the bass note an octave up at the beginning of the phrase. It’s not nearly as present in the mix as the lower note, so it’s easy to miss.
BPM: 95

19. Thelonious (feat. Common)

Common lends a verse to the closing track of the original release of Vol 2. This song also appears on Common’s 2000 album Like Water For Chocolate.
BPM: 96

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