Donuts - J Dilla (2006)

this is one of those albums designed to loop infinitely, and not just because the last song ends in sync with the beginning of the first song.



released on February 7, 2006, three days after its creator passed on, "Donuts" is a 31-track instrumental hip hop masterpiece, a journey through the dustiest yet most delicious funk, rap, jazz, and R&B vinyl sounds imaginable.

the longest track is 2:57, the shortest is 0:13, and most of the other pieces fall somewhere around 1-2min. they're more like doughnut holes than donuts, but then, holes are donuts too and, breaking apart the metaphor, these are all songs, not just brief, unprepared, hashed together thought experiments. they are J Dilla's babies, each one a little more than a peek into the man's record collection, each one a mini-factory of sound outputting clear visions of samples that J had clearly synthesized in his head for many, many years.

the most lengthy track on the record and song #2, "Workinonit," gets things started the right way. blasting off with J Dilla's signature siren call, we are launched into a bouncy room of stringed reverberation with slick drum beats pulling us through. suddenly ascending guitar solos make us forget that we're listening to a hip hop record, while a hermaphroditic voice pulls us in:

play me
play me
buy me
workinonit
workinonit
workinonit
workinonit

girls moan, the guitar solos keep recurring, then breakdown: the guitar sings heavenly, bells twinkle, and we are summoned into the next donut.

listen to "Time: The Donut of the Heart." maybe he's just playing back a Jackson 5 b-side, but i don't care. he's playing it for me and it's divine. he lets it slow down a little bit, just to make you realize how dependent you had become on that sweet melody, and then he lets it do its work at normal speed again.

try "Lightworks:" boop boop beep boop. "This is Bendix: The Tomorrow People." it sounds like he sampled and panned the hell out a commercial from the 50s or something. layering boops and beeps like something out of Kraftwerk,

who the hell is this J Dilla? James Dewitt Yancey founded Slum Village in the mid-90s, but he is most remembered today for his production skills, which, if you've ever listened to Common, Busta Rhymes, A Tribe Called Quest, or The Pharcyde, you've already experienced. he released some solo albums in the early 00s under the moniker Jay Dee and you'll find some great stuff there. in 2003, Jay collaborated with Madlib on an album called "Champion Sound," released under Jaylib. then in 2006, J Dilla gave us "Donuts," which would be so incredibly crafted out of perfectly chosen samples that it would make music lovers around the world pause and wonder, "who the hell is this J Dilla?"

some posthumous albums have made it out since the release of "Donuts," but (and i am by no means a Dilla expert) check this monster out first. if it does the same thing to you as it did to me , you'll think it nothing special until you realize you've just listened to it 15x in a row.

download or buy.