Miami events devoted to quality hip-hop take a little digging to find, but they're there. If you've found them, you're probably already familiar with the circuit of weeklies and one-offs put on by IAmYourVillain. If not, get schooled at the Standard, where the loungey-cool hotel's bar will host a screening of one of the best installments of L.A. production house Mochilla's Timeless film series. Timeless documents a string of concerts featuring a classical-style orchestra performing a suite dedicated to a hip-hop legend, which the Mochilla team put on in its hometown last year.
At Wednesday's event, you can catch the film version of the second concert, Suite for Ma Dukes, dedicated to the late, great J. Dilla, whose posthumous profile is bittersweetly eclipsing that of his lifetime. Composed by Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, the performance features a 60-piece orchestra performing a goose-bump-raising jazz/soul/hip-hop hybrid, full of moody strings that Dilla himself would have likely sampled. Guest vocalists read like a who's who of Dilla collaborators: Bilal, Dwele, De La Soul's Posdnuos, Talib Kweli, and others. Hear and see it all large-scale at the Standard; this is music that needs to be experienced from a P.A., not your tinny laptop speakers. Promoters promise giveaways and other fun stuff too.
