With its rapturous single "Quicksand" featuring Common, Sunset Blvd also teams Yancey Boys with De La Soul's Posdnuos ("Beautiful"), The Pharcyde's SlimKid3 ("Rock My World"), and T3 of Slum Village ("Jeep Volume"), making it clear that the Dilla legacy is being represented by those who knew and collaborated with Dilla in his lifetime. Additional guests on Sunset Blvd include DJs Rhettmatic, C-Minus, and J Rocc (Beat Junkies) as well as rap roughneck Guilty Simpson and R&B strongman Eric Roberson. 'We've created an album that would make Dilla proud,' says Frank Nitt, who grew up with Dilla in Detroit. 'But this isn't a nostalgia trip: Dilla's beats were so future-forward that they're right on time in 2013, and we've assembled the best artists possible to represent that.'
The road to Sunset Blvd has been paved with hard work and sweet inspiration. In 2008, Illa J began making music under the Yancey Boys banner, with the guidance of Delicious Vinyl Co-Founder Michael Ross and utilizing beats his elder brother left behind. Ross explains:
'Putting together the first Yancey Boys album was a unique opportunity to keep it all in the family by giving young Illa J a jump off with unreleased beats of his late great brother. In addition, the record was a unique way to satiate Dilla's rabid fan base with a batch of undiscovered gems. On Sunset Blvd, Illa and Frank dive deep into to a new batch of stunning unreleased Dilla beats to take what we did on the first album to the next level.' "
