There was a good, relatively short story in last week's The New Yorker about Dilla:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...llas-the-diary
I've never been a huge fan. One of his biggest acclaimed successes, Common's Like Water for Chocolate, always paled in comparison to Resurrection and Be in my opinion. And even then, my two favorite songs (and beats) on Like Water for Chocolate are produced by DJ Premier ("The 6th Sense") and James Poyser ("A Song for Assata"), even though Jay Dee produced most of the album. His first big splash was producing most of A Tribe Called Quest's Beats, Rhymes and Life, which has always felt lifeless to me.
With that said, I respect his influence. There's a reason he was always considered "a producer's producer" when he was alive. He changed the way a lot of people thought about production and how to use samples.