Happy Birthday: Ma Dukes (Mareen Yancey)

Let's RAISE IT UP for Mrs. Maureen Yancey a.k.a. "Ma Dukes" and wish her a very happy birthday. Mrs. Yancey is a former opera singer and the mother of the late great Detroit producer James "J-Dilla" Yancey.

In 2006, Mrs. Yancey founded the J-Dilla Project with Uncle Herm to help keep the legacy of J-Dilla alive, display his passion for music and also to raise funds to continue lupus research and provide quality arts training through music for underprivileged children.

A word from Ma Dukes on the J-Dilla Project:

"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. . 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."





The J-Dilla Project Website