Written By Emma Davolt
Is time really the donut of the heart? J Dilla’s 2006 release Donuts is made up of 31 short tracks, one for each year of his life at the time of its completion. I first heard this album during my Freshman year of college and coincidentally donuts were becoming a kind of motif or even omen in my life. But enough about me. I know everyone likes donuts. I think everyone would like this album too. J Dilla was a producer and rapper from Michigan who was well known in the underground hip hop scene. Hospitalized from an incurable blood disease, Donuts (album not food) became Dilla’s fixation. The album was released three days before his untimely death. In contrast to some of his other projects he produced the album on his laptop, some say using pro tools, which accounts for the difference in his approach to distorting the source material. Unlike other JD albums, there are no vocals recorded over the tracks, only remnants of singing from samples, interviews, or concert footage. The disconcerting sounds of bits and pieces salvaged from across the gamut of genre and form work together to make a big collage. It’s like he’s working with an insane mental filing system, allowing him to recognize, store, and flip each sound. By flipping, I mean he takes sample manipulation to the extreme on this album. I love how there are identifiable tracks, specifically “All I Do Is Think of You” from the Jackson 5 on “Time: The Donut of the Heart”, “Only One Can Win” by the Sylvers on “Two Can Win” and a cover of “Light My Fire” by Africa on “Light it”. Can you handle how cute he was with that wordplay? There are also split seconds of songs or sounds that dedicated fans have located. This album is difficult to describe. I feel like it doesn’t really have an equal, if only to say that it is hard to produce an answer for an album with a similar sound and style. The timeless quality of the album is a testament to JD’s artistry. As set-apart from other albums it is, you can hear how it has become a source of inspiration for breaking the rules in hip hop today. A light level of investigation yielded some info on this. The way he programs drums puts shame to the practice of quantization, or timing correction in production. Noted hip hop journalist Dan Charnas has even claimed that JD invented a brand new rythmic feel by combining even and uneven playing styles in the same composition. Maybe timeless is the wrong word; this album is super nostalgic, even on the first listen. It’s honestly not often that a day goes by where I’m not playing one of the songs off this album in my mind. They are beyond catchy and give you just enough whiplash to keep you thinking about them. I think my favorite track is “The Diff’rence” which combines a looping track with blaring sirens and an invocation of the fruit man. This is really an amazing album to listen to all the way through. It’s only 43 minutes! The album starts with an outro and ends with a welcome, inviting continuous listens to an irresistibly weird and satisfying loop, a donut that keeps you coming back for more.