DAN CHARNAS is the author of "Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, The Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm (2022)," the product of four years of research and nearly 200 interviews. He also wrote the definitive history of the hip-hop business, "The Big Payback," and "Work Clean," a book that applies chefs’ techniques to almost any life situation. The cocreator and executive producer of the VH1 movie and TV series "The Breaks," he lives in Manhattan and teaches at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts.