Donuts

One of the biggest oversights of the official list. If DJ Shadow is on there, this needs to be too.

Classic ! Should be in the original list for sure.

If you like random noise for 40 minutes, this is for you. It wasn’t for me.

One of the sampling masterworks up there with the Avalanches' 'Since I Left You,' a tapestry of soundbites and melodies coming together to form something so much greater than its parts. The hip-hop stylings of this LP set it apart as something wholly unique, however, with a sonic world all its own populated with some fun recurring elements and characters (WORKINGONIT). Dips its toes into a great mix of valences (the slightly sinister pull of the vocals outside 'Lightworks' minor key sends shivers down my spine every time) and invokes so many emotions on its sonically-splintered yet liquid smooth journey. J Dilla deserved a career as prolific and creative as MF DOOM, we're all that much creatively poorer for living in a world where was taken too soon. RIP to a real one and thanks to whomever added this masterpiece to the list.

Another one that is so obvious I really thought it would have already been included. A document to the great musician of hip-hop. The 3 song run of Two Can Win–Don’t Cry–Anti-American Grafitti is an all-timer. R.I.P. 🍩

Donuts is the second album of hip hop producer J Dilla released three days before his death. The tracks are all short sketches composed of a lot of samples. It received great reviews. Personally I think it's OK, but not more than that. As I wrote these tracks remain just sketches and at thew moment the rhythm and song structure start to stick they have ended. Also each of the songs heavily rely on a few of the samples, making you question you are listening to a remix or a new composition.

I wanted to like this more but I just didn’t relate. Backstory is sad and interesting, album is unique. But I really struggled to enjoy it which makes me wonder a bit what I’m missing.

Rating: 10/10

This has long since been a favourite of mine. Whether you can consider this music in the traditional sense I don't know but to me this is interesting and vital. It sends me to another world and that is the important thing.

RIP my goat

With 31 very short tracks sprawled over 43 minutes, I have always had trouble finding my stride to appreciate this record, that many hip hop fans consider as iconic. For quite some time, I sort of knew what I *thought* was missing in this album: for me, the shortness of the cuts found in *Donuts* indeed made the latter a very different beast compared to DJ Shadow's *Endtroducing*, where the hypnotic, similar samples-driven music is displayed through far longer compositions. But maybe comparing the two albums separated by a decade or so -- a comparison uttered by a lot of listeners -- was unfair to both projects. And maybe this pushed me on the wrong track reception-wise. As you've probably understood by now, something has finally clicked for me after listening to the album again today (and I've listened to it twice). I already knew that "Workinonit" was a banger that was cool as fuck before this particular occasion. But I had probably not given enough time to *actively* listen to the whole full-length shebang this banger is part of. So a hundred thanks to the user who suggested this. Because oh boy, how quickly a lot of those tracks have ingrained themselves inside my brain this time around! As of now my favorite cuts from *Donuts* are: "The New" (sampling the Beastie Boys!), "Stop", "Mash" (whose sensuous piano sample I have heard somewhere else, spliced differently -- but where?), "Time: The Donut of The Heart" (love it when that guitar loop gets timestretched for only a couple of seconds so as to take twice the time to unravel), "Lightworks" (with its mysterious and haunting Brill Building-adjacent feminine vocal snippets and Flying Lotus-urban psychedelia), "Two Can Win" (whose near-chipmunk soul vocals admittedly sound a bit dated in a noughts fashion -- but whose extra layering of ghostly voices simply sounds insane and, more importantly, genuinely timeless here), "Anti-American Graffiti" (with yet another great guitar loop), "Geek Down (a Bomb Squad pastiche that hits all the right marks while never losing its cool demeanor), "Gobstopper" (whose Miles Davis-like trumpet sample does atmospheric wonders), and chill near-closer "Last Donut Of The Night". That list might evolve with time, of course. And the mixtape nature of the whole thing implies you take the whole thing as a single "program" anyway, instead of an album in the traditional sense of the word. But I wanted every newcomer to this album to clearly understand where I now pinpoint the strongest assets in *Donuts*'s very long tracklist. I'm not saying anything new for longtime fans, I imagine .. Not all the experiments work -- "The Factory" is quite a failed one in my ears for instance. Yet those short weird experimental forays also bring the necessary variety to make the whole project sound like an adventure where all sorts of things can happen -- and this, even if they happen in a very short time for each track. Add the tragic circumstances around the creation of this album -- enhancing the tearjerker nature of "Don't Cry" tenfold -- and what you get is a "classic", I imagine. What I love the most about *Donuts* as a full project now is that its "program" seems to speak about the whole African American experience, both past and present, and that the record makes the incredible feat of accomplishing this through a cut-and-paste artistry that's mostly instrumental in its nature... Aesthetically pleasing and aesthetically/ topically relevant, here's a hip hop album for the ages indeed. I've stopped focusing on what was lacking (the "hole" of the donut, i.e. instrumentals having a quote-unquote "normal" length). Now I can appreciate the donut itself. Better late than never. 4.5/5 for the purposes of this list dedicated to essential albums, rounded up to 5 9.5/10 for more general purposes (5/5 + 4.5/5) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 100 (including this one) Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 113 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 237 ---- Hey Émile, j'ai répondu sous Demon Days ET ta sélection pour la users list ! 🙂

Very interesting, always wanted to give this album a listen. Kinda jumbled, but it might be the charm of it

This is certainly a dense and richly layered little melange of sound. I remain stubbornly skeptical of things almost wholly constructed of other people's art. But I'll suspend that grumpy old man objection on this one out of, you know, respects.

Not fair! This album is ∞ minutes long. I don't have an eternity to listen to J Dilla not first listen! but it's been a while, so I appreciate being reminded of this I will say my prior impression of a summery instrumental hip-hop album is complicated by all this oddball noises I don't remember from last listen. An album I literally heard hours before putting this on is Starsailor by Tim Buckley. One would think the weirdness of that one would make this seem normal by comparison, but no I never realized that Ghostface Killah's Fishscale (also from 2006) samples this, I will have to check that out again. It really helps to go around the donut at least a second time, the seeming lack of a coherent structure feels better when you remember it's just looping around to the intro track Decided to get off this ride at track 19, "Anti-American Graffiti", perhaps next time I play this album, I'll start there HL: "Workingonit", "Stop", "Time: the Donut of the Heart", "Lightworks", "One Eleven", "Two Can Win", "Last Donut of the Night"

The best

J Dilla was a hip hop producer who, prior to his death in 2006, crafted a number of beats for some of the greatest artists and albums at the time. In fact, you have already heard his work on a number of albums on the original 1001 list, including Voodoo by D'Angelo, Like Water for Chocolate and Be by Common, Mama's Gun by Erykah Badu, and Fishscale by Ghostface Killah. A master of his craft, Dilla was dedicated to honing his beat-making skills and seeking out fresh samples. While he would rap on his debut album Welcome 2 Detroit, most people appreciate him for his beat tapes. The funny thing about beat tapes is that they are moreso meant for other artists who are looking for a producer rather than general audiences. However, Dilla's work on Donuts is so vibrant and lovingly made that it doesn't need an MC to shine. An album like this is a testament to the hardworking beatmakers who are, more or less, half of what makes hip hop so great. More than just a bouncing rhythm, it's a synthesis of other great genres in order to make something more than the sum of its parts. Dilla arguably understood this better than anyone. Three days following the release of Donuts, J Dilla passed away due to cardiac arrest. It was likely brought on by his already-troubling medical problems at the time, which forced him to slow down his incredible output. By this point, he had cemented a legacy amongst hip hop artists and fans alike as one of the greatest producers to ever live. He was 32. CONTENDER FOR THE LIST: Yes.

Just your standard slow hiphop.

Instrumental hip-hop, alternative hip-hop, plunderphonics. Ni fu ni fa.

Nice

Was okay

I almost skipped this one because I'm just not really into hip hop. But when I saw J Dilla's Detroit tigers hat on the cover I figured I should give him a listen. I'm glad I did. Still not my favorite genre, but I enjoyed this overall. Sad that he died way too young. 3 stars.

Kinda feel the same about this how I feel about "Modal Soul", another instrumental hip-hop album from the same era - Sacred cow album that I feel like is almost impossible to truly dislike, but also I don't get much out of it other than "Yeah that was pretty cool". The backstory is inseparable from discussions of this album, and it is definitely as heartbreaking as it is empowering - a man knowing he was going to die doing everything in his power to finish his magnum opus. It definitely makes a lot of the songs on here land hard ("Don't Cry"), but I also don't think it really comes through for me as much as it does other people. Worthy addition though. 3/5.

This is a tossed together mix of unfinished ideas but it's fun and flies by.

I'm going to treat this album a bit differently because of the consequences surrounding its existance. Because of that, I won't bother stating favourite or least favourite songs, because this album is greater than the sum of its parts... This is an instrumental hip hop album. Its 43 minutes long, and features 31 songs. This leads to a whole cocophony of songs that feel like ideas moreso than tracks. It's like hip hop's version of a punk record. There is an unfortunate reason for this though. This is J-Dilla's last record he made before he died. It was actually released 3 days before his death. Dude was suffering with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) and Lupus, and mixed this album while in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (an insane feat, and just shows how much the guy was dedicated to his craft. He had something to say before he left, and this album is it). That said, I get that since his days were numbered, he didn't have the health or time to develop the songs, so it's really unfortunate. What this man did with his remaining days though is insane. There are some neat concepts here. I feel the same way about this album as I do about Gord Downie's last album, Introduce Yerself. Gord wrote it while dying of cancer, and it was released after his death. It was also a compilation of unfinished concept ideas. In Gord's case, it was more a collection of goodbye letters to everyone he loved (each song was dedicated to someone special in his life). These kinda albums are so emotionally charged that they are hard to digest sometimes. Each deathbed album created by an artist is special for more reasons than just the music featured between the covers. That is why I am not picking apart tracks to vote for my favourite or least favourite one. At the end of the day, on this kinda album, it doesn't matter. I appreciate J Dilla for what he did for hip hop, and the work he put in and the message he conveyed on this album. 3/5.... Fuck Lupus

Cool but... demo like, hard to get into

I did not enjoy this one very much.

I don’t vibe with this kind of music. I don’t get the repetitive sampling.