You know, if I had a choice, skip the major labels and just put it out yourself man… Trust me. I tell everybody it’s better to do it yourself and let the Indies come after you instead of going in their [direction] and getting a deal and you have to wait, it ain’t fun, take it from me. Right now, I’m on MCA but it feels like I’m an unsigned artist still. It’s cool, it’s a blessing, but damn I’m like, ‘When’s my shit gonna come out? I’m ready now, what’s up?’

This dude is a fucking dick but he’s also intelligent and blunt:

http://www.xxlmag.com/online/?p=22498

You’ll recall that a few weeks ago (notice how things always took place a few weeks ago), a lawyer named Artie Fufkin took out a full page ad in Billboard talking about people have been violating, using Dilla’s material, as well as his name and likeness, to promote various ventures that haven’t been authorized by his estate, and how this has been, in effect, taking food out of his kids’ mouths. He’s obviously yet to be convinced that J Dilla’s corpse won’t be able to pull in some money point or another.

That ad struck me as bullshit for a few reasons. First of all, who the fuck is Artie Fufkin, and who in the fuck died and left him the executor of Dilla’s estate? (Erm, never mind that last question.) Also, there was some shit in the ad pointing out how no one - and it made it a point to note that no one includes members of Dilla’s family - other than himself is allowed to sign off on business matters regarding J Dilla. I can’t remember if the ad itself actually mentioned Dilla’s mother, but I pretty much assumed that was the case. I’ve seen her do some press for some things since Dilla bought the farm, and I know she was on the intro to that Busta Rhymes and Dilla mixtape that came out a while back. Then I read, the other day, in a story by Jeff Weiss in the LA Weekly, that Artie Fufkin might have to go after Dilla’s moms for appearing on that tape. The fuck?

Something tells me that if Dilla were alive today, he’d be mad skinny he wouldn’t approve of some Jew lawyer going after his mother just for trying to get a few dollars off a motherfucking mixtape. This is, after all, the woman who moved out to California to wipe his ass while he was out there dying of whatever he was dying of - not to mention the fact that she raised his ass in the first. Presumably, in the process, she incurred a cost that far outweighs whatever measley amount she’s been able to extract from his corpse since he died. And the bottom line is that, that’s his mothers. You don’t go siccing the white man on your mother just because she cost you a few dollars. Maybe if you’re Dilla’s fellow Detroit rapper Eminem, you do. But you know how white dudes are; they get mad upset with their mothers.

So I think it’s obvious this guy Artie Fufkin is the one that’s violating. The real question is, why? When I did a post on this shit back around the time that ad was in Billboard (i.e. a few weeks ago), I figured this was probably a matter of Dilla’s baby’s mother trying to cake up off of his back catalog. She wasn’t actually mentioned in the ads, but the kids were. And you know, anytime someone shows up trying to collect money for somebody’s kids, there’s usually a stingy-ass baby’s mother waiting in the wings. Just like with Fiddy Cent’s baby’s mother. How much of that $25,000 a month she had been getting (before Fiddy sicced the junkyard dog on her) do you think was really going towards Fiddy’s son? $100? $200? There’s only so many Ninja Turtles you can buy a kid. At least Dilla’s baby’s mother, unlike Shaniqua, has done a good job of keeping a low profile, and letting Artie Fufkin do her bidding.

But that doesn’t excuse the bullshit she’s been pulling - laying guilt trips on people just for stealing the guy’s music, as if it’s really hurting him at this point; threatening the guy’s mother; let alone whatever it is she plans on doing to actually get any money out of his back catalog. Don’t let me turn on the TV one of these days and see that tranvestite Santogold dancing to a Dilla beat in a commercial for Bud Light with Lime. (If they used Kurt Cobain’s shit in a commercial for a baseball video game, who knows what Artie Fufkin’s got in mind for Dilla’s shit.) I can see her ostensible argument for making sure his kids have something to eat, but who really thinks that’s all this is about? If that’s all it was, I’m sure we could take up a collection. I might even be willing to part with a few dollars myself, provided I knew for a fact that it was going to the man’s kids, and not some skeezer he once dropped a load in and her lawyer.

Am I tripping, or isn’t “Artie Fufkin” the joke lawyer from Spinal Tap?

...for the record, Wiki is chock full of surprisingly dope/useful links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Hip_hop_record_producers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_production

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(music)

source: LA Weekly

But as successful as the deification has been, the budding Dilla empire has foundered, thanks to astronomical health bills, which forced Dilla to go into hock with the government and die with high six-figure IRS debt and few tangible assets — save for a few hard drives of beats and a publishing deal with Universal Music. Ironically, as Dilla’s stock is at an all-time high, the executors of his estate have been bedeviled by a one-two punch: scrambling to pay his tab while fighting rampant Internet piracy of his material, both aimed at the ultimate goal of providing an inheritance for his two young daughters. “It’s frustrating,” says Arthur Erk, the estate’s executor and Dilla’s former business manager. “People have been cropping up left and right, trying to make money off Dilla’s name and likeness. There was something called the Dilla Foundation, which doesn’t even exist legally, yet it was trying to host charity events, claiming authorization from the estate. If there weren’t young children involved, we’d give up. No one needs this type of aggravation.”

Enforcing copyright in the Internet age is a Sisyphean task, and trying to protect one of the first big names to die young in the RapidShare world, Dilla’s estate has been beset with a dilemma that figures to plague families of all prematurely deceased musicians henceforth.

Explains Erk: “The problem is that Dilla was friendly with a lot of people — many of whom I know, many of whom I don’t ­— and there have been dozens of bootleg situations we’ve had to expend estate cash on to shut stuff down. If we don’t, it cheapens the value of his brand. We’re trying to protect his legacy and his heirs.”

Keeping track of the wealth of Dilla beats floating around the Web is practically impossible. Most notably, Busta Rhymes released a free Dillagence mixtape last year, featuring an introduction from Dilla’s mother, a matter that Erk claims is currently in mediation. This April, the recording masters of Pay Jay, Dilla’s never-released MCA record, were illicitly leaked to the Internet, sabotaging an estate plan to rerelease them at a yet-to-be-determined date. In a last-ditch effort to assert control over the heavily pirated material, the estate recently took out a full-page ad in Billboard, informing the industry that the only person, including friends and family, legally authorized to execute transactions or make any decisions regarding the commercial use of Dilla’s name, music, merchandise, photographs, video appearances, artwork, etc., is Erk.

“We’re not sure how many Dilla beats are floating around,” says Micheline Levine, Dilla’s former lawyer. “It’s been an absolute nightmare. [Erk] and I have been working without fees, and neither of us dreamed that copyright infringement would be so extensive and harmful to the estate. We’re trying to get the message out to third parties, who may in some convoluted way think they’re helping out the heirs but are really depriving them of income.”

A Dilla tribute is tentatively planned, as are several lawsuits against copyright infringers; both actions are meant to deliver at least a modicum of income beyond the modest royalties. With the gospel of Dilla secure and reasonably certain to grow, his legacy and brand certainly have the potential to provide for his children. Whether or not they do lies in his empire’s efficacy in striking back.

source: beatvizion makes the case that Arthur Erk/Artie Fufkin is more or less a total shithead:

JW: In the original article, some comments from Dilla’s estate’s executors made you take pause. What were they and what sort of problems have you had with the estate?

Maureen Yancey: I understand the side [estate executor] Arty Erk’s coming from and what he’s trying to do. However, there has been no communication between them and the family in a year. The only time I hear a peep is if there are some propositions between attorney’s going to court. That’s the only time I’m made aware of things.

It’s ridiculous. I still have contacts with all of Dilla’s friends and people in the hip-hop community. We still talk, we still keep in touch, we’ve became friends. They check in on me and I’ve had the opportunity to direct them to the estate thinking they’d be able to help do projects. But most of the time, none of their inquiries have been addressed. There’s no one that has made it accessible to them to contribute and get work done. I’ve stopped sending people there. They haven’t been forthright, I was told they didn’t appreciate the help, that we weren’t supposed to use Dilla’s name or license. By the time, I understood what was happening and learned about the legal ramifications, I took down the website for the Foundation that we’d created as to be in compliance with state laws. I figured in the coming year, they’d reevaluate their decision, but it never happened.

One of the things Dilla wanted me to do with his legacy was to use it to help others, people with illness, kids who were musically gifted but had little hope due to poverty. I wanted to use my contacts to help people and out and it was squashed because we weren’t in compliance with the state and there was nothing we could do about it. I’m Dilla’s mother and I can’t use Dilla’s name or likeness, but I know that I still can honor him by doing his work.

What were your intended goals for the Foundation?

I wanted to set it up to help others but also to be a nucleus for the fans who wanted to do tributes and honor Dilla. It would be a place for artists to be able to show their support. When the estate chose not to communicate with us, they sold themselves short. The A-list artists stay in contact with me directly and they’re basically cutting off the quality talents that made themselves closest to Dilla. Anyone with a knowledge about his work would know this, but those in charge haven’t a clue to Dilla’s worth, They haven’t a clue as to who he was as a man or what his relationship was with his fans and his peers. It’s a community, those artists coming out of the underground. You can see this when you travel around the world and see how large his fan base really was. People are still discovering the extent of Dilla’s influence.

He has a young audience just coming into the community who he’s had a major influence on. Then there’s the issue of the jazz community. Dilla grew up with jazz. That was his lullaby and the connection is far greater than the estate realizes. It’s more than just notes. There’s so much that can be done and the estate hasn’t got a clue. It’s such a waste of time. But I’m not closing the door on them yet. Dilla worked alongside with me and I was a big part of my son’s past. I moved to LA to take care of him, I worked for him from day one, that’s why the communication with his peers and me has been so great.

What do you hope happens with the estate?

At the end of the day, we want our voices to be heard. We want the community to work with me and the estate. We want everyone to work together. It’s been the estate’s choice to not communicate with us and it jeopardizes the future quality of his projects. They make the decisions for him without the proper musical knowledge. Their depth of musical knowledge just isn’t enough.

How did this entire mess come about? Why did Dilla pick these people if they didn’t know anything about music?

He definitely wouldn’t have chosen any of them if he knew better. The thing is, Dilla got along with mostly everyone, but if he knew about certain people who have collaborated with the estate he’d been spinning in his grave. They might as well have gotten someone off the street to oversee things. They know the words but they don’t know what they mean.

Arty Erk was never his business manager as he portrays himself. During Dilla’s lifetime, he was strictly an accountant. Now they constantly threaten to sue at the drop of a dime, I don’t want to risk my health so I try not to worry about these things too much but it’s upsetting.

It all happened because of our lack of knowledge. Dilla was the first person in our family to even have a will, he was the first to even have anything to designate, the only one of us that had an estate. I’m talking about grandparents and great-grandparents back all the way down. Usually, all we’ve left behind is bills. I didn’t know how what to do, so we ended up sitting on the paperwork for months. We put it off. As his mother and best friend, I didn’t want to interfere or ask questions. I felt it wasn’t my place. I was so sure that he’d pull out of it. I never had a clue that he’d pass. He’d always tell me, ‘mom I’m going to go home,’ so that’s what I thought would happen. If I’d know he was going to pass, I’d have certainly had someone look at the paperwork. It’s just we never thought he’d need it. He ended up with Arty Erk because he had handled his finances, but still, he never had knowledge that it would end up this way. And what about Micheline Levine, his attorney?

Dilla had been with her for most of his career, since he’d been with the Ummah. Whaen Dilla started to make it, he interviewed with several attorney’s and he felt the most comfortable with Scott Felcher, who employed Micheline. Dilla was big on going with the people he felt the most comfortable with.

.....

So what’s the status of Dilla’s kids at the moment?

They’re doing fine. Both of the mother’s are drawing social security and his daughters are living with them. Dilla wanted them to be taken care of and they are.

You’ve mentioned how close of a relationship you have with Dilla’s artist friends? Who do you still keep in touch with?

Everyone calls me. Busta calls regularly. Erykah, Common, The Roots. All the top name artists used to come over during Christmas and New Year’s and at various points during the year, so we came to be a family. It’s a beautiful relationship that’s never faltered, even the artists out in LA. Madlib is a perfect example. Before they’d met face to face, Dilla and him already had a great relationship. The thing is, Dilla didn’t want to work with just anyone. There were times he’d gotten offers that would involve big money and he would be like ‘I’m not feeling them,’ and tell me that he knew better. I’d be sick about it, because it would be at times when he really needed the financial resources, but it wasn’t about that, it was about quality. I mean he’s still receiving awards and dedications worldwide to this day.

So what do the artist’s themselves think of the tumultuous relationship you’ve had with the estate?

I can’t name one of them who’s happy about it. None of them want to see me having to grovel for money for medication. I’ve always been a businesswoman but I had to give it up to take care of Dilla.

What was your profession?

I ran a day care, I had always done that in a building at Conant Gardens. I’d always taken care of myself and never depended on Dilla.

What about the relationship with Stones Throw? You see a lot of mean-spirited comments and rumors in chat rooms that they’ve been less than upright in business matters regarding Dilla.

Stones Throw has always been wonderful. When I came to LA to take care of Dilla, his medical bills were sky-high but the people from the label were there every day. The only time they didn’t come was when I would call them and tell them to come a day later, because Dilla was too sick for visitors. They took care of the finances, they gave him advances for music that had barely been discussed. They’ve been great.

Dilla didn’t have health insurance for his last two years, so every time he went in and out of the hospital, he would rack up massive bills, sometimes up to a quarter of a million dollars. But they would always try to give us help, even if they didn’t have it. I know people say mean things about them but they just aren’t true. They’re totally honest and they loved Dilla, they stuck by him to the very end.