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Busta Rhymes: Opening the Dilla Vault, 19 Tracks at a Time

On Dillagence II, Busta turns roughly 300 unreleased J Dilla beats into a full album, with a posthumous D’Angelo vocal and Ma Dukes at his side.

Typographic graphic in yellow and white on black reading “Busta Rhymes, Dillagence II, Dilla Time.”

Dilla Time, 20 Years Later

J Dilla sent Busta Rhymes beats for years before he died in 2006. Two decades on, Busta has turned that vault into a 19-track album. 

On August 25, 2026, Busta Rhymes released Dillagence II, a 19-track album built entirely on J Dilla productions, nearly two decades after Dilla’s death in 2006. Spin reported that it draws on roughly 300 beats Dilla sent Busta over the course of their friendship.


It follows the 2007 mixtape Dillagence, which Complex described as a DJ Mick Boogie-hosted project with Busta and guests rapping over Dilla instrumentals. Busta had told GQ back in 2020 that Dilla left him with more than 300 beats. Spin noted that across his albums he generally used only one or two Dilla productions at a time, so this is the first time he has gone deep into the archive.


The album took shape slowly. Complex reported that Busta revealed it at a private listening session in New York on February 19. Spin said he began seriously assembling it in November 2025, working with Dilla’s estate and his mother, Ma Dukes, to make sure the music was handled with care. She appears on the record, and AP singled out “Royalty” as the emotional center, where she is joined by Busta’s own children, CIE and Trillian.


The sound is the whole point. Busta told The New York Times’ Popcast that Dilla’s gift was understanding that music’s soul comes from human timing, which is never perfectly on the grid. AP described that “Dilla Time” feel as a cockeyed, uneven swagger that went on to shape much of 21st-century popular music. Spin also quoted him saying he has never tried his famous speed-rap on a Dilla beat: “It doesn’t warrant that.”


Then there is “This Woman.” Rolling Stone reported that the track is built around what appears to be a scratch vocal from D’Angelo, recorded in a Dilla session about 20 years ago that never became a project. D’Angelo sings the hook of Sister Nancy’s “Bam Bam” over the groove, which Rolling Stone called a pristine chorus even in rough form. Funknuz readers know where that hook comes from: our Sister Nancy piece. Busta and D’Angelo never released music together while D’Angelo was alive. After D’Angelo died last October, Rolling Stone said, Busta released the tribute song “Magic,” and told Okayplayer, “I feel like the Earth shifted when D came to do music.”


The guest list runs deep. Lil Wayne appears on “Talk Ya (Expletive),” which AP said is his first time on a Dilla beat. Rolling Stone also named Common, Big Sean, Anderson .Paak, Ludacris and Jon Batiste, and HotNewHipHop listed T3 of Slum Village and Talib Kweli among the features, keeping Dilla’s Detroit circle in the room.


For a genre that sometimes treats its producers as footnotes, this is the reverse: the beatmaker’s work is the main event, and the rapper steps in as a guest in his house.


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A note on this article: This piece was researched and drafted with Funknuz AI, then edited, fact-checked, and finalized by our editorial team. All sourcing is linked above. AI can make mistakes, and so can we — if something reads off, that's on us, not the tech.

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