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On May 1st, Dorian Anthony Fiddler, son of Detroit musician/vocalist Amp Fiddler passed away due to complications from his recently diagnosis of diabetes. This Thursday night, May 7th, at Bert's Warehouse at 2739 Russell St. in Detroit, there will be a fundraiser held in Dorian's honor to assist with the funeral costs. I don't care what scene you are from, if you are in Detroit on Thursday, you need to support our brother Amp Fiddler. He has done so much for our city. He has taught so many of our greatest musicians (Dilla, Slum Village, Waajeed, etc etc). He has just been an all around great man. Its time for us to show up and support him in his time of need. Complete info is below. Admission is free and they will be collecting donations at the door. Let's pack the place and have a beautiful night in honor of Dorian Fiddler. Let's show that Detroit is the city that I think and I hope Detroit is and stand up for on of our own.

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Dorian Anthony Fiddler, the only and beloved son of Joseph “Amp” Fiddler and Stacey Willoughby passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on the morning of Friday May 1st 2009. He had only that week been taken into hospital and diagnosed with diabetes and after suffering unexpected complications leading to heart failure, he left us all on May 1st.

Born on January 11th 1991, Dorian was an accomplished drummer and trumpeter who had adopted his father’s love and devotion of music from an early age and pursued his own musical goals and ambitions with dogged determination and dedication. In recent years he had been a pupil at Detroit’s School of the Arts, where he was an Honor Roll student (2008), playing in the school band as well as collaborations with other students. Latterly he also worked beats in the school studios for 3 hours every day, learning all aspects of music production. Also, when opportunity would permit, he would join his father on stage, most recently at the Ford Auto Show in Detroit in January 2009.

A memorial benefit gig will be held on Thursday May 7th 2009 from 6pm onwards at Bert’s Warehouse Theater , 2739 Russell St, Detroit. The “One Love Jam” will be a fundraiser to assist Amp and his family with the Funeral Services. We are calling on the Detroit Community to come out and support. Admission is free but all contributions will be gratefully received at the door, or if you cannot attend you can contribute via paypal to the Dorian Fiddler memorial account. We are also asking you to add your love to the mix - Bring your Vocals, Instruments, DJ Equipment & the Support of your Presence.

Thank you to all of you who have already come out and shown support for Amp and his family at this extremely difficult time.

Details of the Funeral
to be held this Saturday, May 9th at Fellowship Chapel
7707 W. Outer Drive
Detroit, MI 48235

Bert’s Warehouse
2739 Russell St
Detroit, from 6pm

Entry Free: ALL DONATIONS GRATEFULLY RECEIVED

Donations can also be made to the Dorian Fiddler Memorial Fund via paypal
at www.paypal.com to ampfiddler@yahoo.com or checks should be made out to: "Joseph Fiddler"

Please send to Detroit Events Team:
141 W. Parkhurst Place Detroit MI
48203-5246 USA

For more information: 313-334-5833 or contact@detevents.com or tinku@anuthamutha.com

The Giant Peach, a California-based company created as an avenue for the production and distribution of music, artwork, and clothing from independent artists (mainly hip hop oriented), have just set up a donation fund via Paypal for Maureen Yancey (Ma Dukes), the mother of the late James Yancey (J. Dilla) on their MySpace page at myspace.com/thegiantpeach.

Maureen Yancey gave birth to one of the greatest producers of our generation, James Yancey aka Dilla. She suffers from Lupus, the same disease which claimed the life of her child. Lupus is an auto-immune disease which results in cell and tissue damage and a host of related medical issues.

Please note: this is NOT a tax-deductible donation, and this is in no way related to the Dilla Foundation or the estate of James Yancey. There are no administration fees related to your donation. You will be donating directly to Mrs. Yancey. Thank you!

For those of your who don't want to pay through Paypal and/or just want to send some sort of correspondence/letters to Ma Dukes, you can send it to the following address:
Maureen Yancey
8281 E. Brentwood
Detroit, MI 48234

And if you want to know the current state of the J. Dilla estate and Maureen Yancey's thoughts on it all, there were a couple stories in L.A. Weekly earlier this year that explains it all.

READ: Who's Biting J. Dilla's Beats? by Jeff Weiss (LA Weekly)
READ: An Interview With J. Dilla's Mother, Maureen Yancey by Jeff Weiss (LA Weekly)

LINKS: J. DILLA MYSPACE | THE GIANT PEACH MYSPACE

Since I relaunched the site, the comment posting for each article wasn't working properly. I fixed it and you don't have to register to post. To avoid spam and other bullshit, I do have to approve comments. Please leave feedback on the topics I post. I want to know what people think and feel about this Detroit shit.

Tonight, I'll be on the Cultural Vibe radio on MSU's radio station 88.9FM out of East Lansing. I'll be on at 11pm EST, and doing an all Detroit hip hop set of material from the past year and forthcoming followed about an interview. If you are not in the area, you can listen live online at www.impact89fm.org.

For more info on the show: CULTURAL VIBE MYSPACE.

So after living like rock star this passed weekend getting wasted at various parties at The Buzz Bar and Fi-nite Gallery, along with the Sunglasses At Day party at the Old Miami, a sense of accomplishment along with a sense of regret comes over me. I feel like I should be sharing my interesting life more on this site, so I'm going to eventually tweek the site a little bit more. During my journalistic phase while writing for Real Detroit Weekly, I felt to try to make this site more of an online 'zine, but I just can't do that myself and I can't find enough people that share the love for what I do to help out in that manner (as much as some people like to talk like they do). I was thinking that 6 years ago I used to run this site much like a "blog" site before "blogging" become so popular, so fuck it, I'm going to go back to that. I'm going to bring much more of a personal element to the site again because honesty my life is alot more interesting now and I'm much more comfortable putting myself as the center of attention now.

Expect more updates about songs I hear, CDs i get, parties i'm going and been to, pictures from parties and such. I'm just trying to bring much more of an aural and visual presense to the site again because I just think there is a small group of us in Detroit that are really trying to change the game a bit and make things more fun and interesting.

I invite people to hit me up if they have a new CD, new tracks, or whatever. I'm a busy dude so sometimes I can't get to things real quick but I'll try my hardest. I know this is personally opening it up for ALOT of wack shit to come my way, but screw it. Remember though that I only deal with quality music, so don't send me no bullshit.

Expect mixes and podcasts soon also. On a regular basis I want to put stuff that I'm feeling into a nice podcast show, and I want to make some nice DJ mixes just to show people how I play. People in Detroit know I spin, but they don't know how and what I spin. I've kinda changed it up a bit since I started using Serato. I get to play more music I'm really passionate about now!!!

Anyways. Email me. djkfresh@rensoul.com.