(Photo: Stones Throw Records)

 James Yancey, aka J Dilla, was undoubtedly the most slept-on hip hop beatmaker ever when he was alive. But in his death, six years ago today (February 10), he’s achieved hip hop sainthood, a mythical cult figure to those lucky enough to have heard his pioneering productions. His influence on hip hop’s sonic landscape is hard to underestimate; his work was the blueprint for late ’90s and early 2000s neosoul icons, including Jill Scott and D’Angelo, anchored the sound of Common, Busta Rhymes and Q-Tip, and was a huge inspiration to the Neptunes, The Roots and others. Here, we took on the difficult task of distilling his lengthy track record to these 10 key moments — whether turning points or benchmarks in his career or ground-breaking master works that are still blowing minds today. There is nothing like this …

(Photo: Jo Hale/Getty Images)

 Questlove, Dilla and D’Angelo went on to form the Soulquarian collective — which also included keyboardist James Poyser, Erykah Badu and others — and the hard-working drummer/producer recruited the crew to produce most of Common’s fourth album, 2000’s Like Water for Chocolate, with Dilla doing much of the heavy lifting. D and Com would go on to collaborate for years, but their finest, most transcendent moment came on the Grammy-nominated breakthrough “The Light,” an earnest, quintessentially Common love letter anchored by Dilla’s gorgeous flip of Bobby Caldwell’s “Open Your Eyes.”

(Photo: John Shearer/WireImage)

 In 1995, Detroit music vet Amp Fiddler introduced Dilla to Tribe, who recruited him to produce for their 1996 album Beats, Rhymes & Life as part of their beatmaking crew, the Ummah. Though Dilla and Tribe’s partnership may have peaked two years later with “Find a Way,” this 1996 banger was the stunning debut of his late ’90s signature sound — hypnotizing, beautifully manipulated samples juxtaposed with woofer-wobbling bass and impossibly hard drums.

For more of Dilla’s key productions visit BET.com

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