Earlier this year, the Estate of James Yancy, a.k.a. J. Dilla revived Dilla’s Pay Jay Productions as a functioning imprint. And they announced that they were going to release J. Dilla’s long-awaited (and long lost) vocal album The Diary. “Diamonds and Ice” is the latest single and will be released as a 7 track EP, which will be released on August 27th.

Originally recorded before his posthumously released album, The Shining, J, Dilla titled the tracks “The Shining Part 1” and “The Shining Part 2. Part 1 was produced by Nottz. "Diamonds (The Shining Part 1)” was produced by Noritz whereas “Ice” (The Shining Part 2)“ was produced by Madlib, who Dilla collaborated with in a project called Jaylib. In fact, the EP has two different versions  of "Ice” – one which showed the musical direction J. Dilla. What makes this track so interesting is that it reveals to us a beloved artist playing and experimenting with sounds and sonic palettes until he had found the sound that he had become so known for.