#62: J Dilla — Donuts (2006)
Los Angeles, CA — Stones Throw
Another week, another illustrious album with some deep lore behind it for us to appreciate. And, might I add, what a great week to be Gloob it is: I purposefully picked out 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Dye Tryin’ after he expressed his desire to see me review it, and now the randomizer falls smack down on top of one of his reportedly favorite instrumental rap albums ever.
Even if he never really broke through to the mainstream, Detroiter producer James Dewitt Yancey is easily one of hip-hop’s most fundamental household names, with collaborations under his belt such as Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, Talib Kweli, Common, The Roots, De La Soul, The Pharcyde, and Questlove, many of which were his colleagues in the Soulquarians artistic collective, not to speak of Slum Village, his original group during the 90s. He had serious chronic health issues, and by 2005 his condition had worsened so much that he was mostly hospital-bound most of the time. According to the popular version of the legend, he finalized Donuts almost entirely in a hospital room, with portable turntables and samplers brought in by close friends, making it his literal swan song. A moving story, no doubt, but likely not true: according to Dilla Time, Dan Charmas’ celebrated 2022 biography of J, it was at first a regular beattape, was made before his hospitalization, in his home, using digital software instead of analog samplers, and was mostly finalized by Stones Throw art director Jeff Jank, who even named the tracks himself, but nevertheless worked under Dilla’s close supervision.
Regardless of story, most people will agree on the indisputable importance of Donuts in Dilla’s back catalogue and legacy. It was his last record released in his lifetime, in February 7th of 2006, his birthday and also only three days before his untimely passing at 32 years of age, and is by far one of his most listened to records, counting both his solo and collaborative releases, as well as loose producer credits. According to Dee himself, it didn’t even begin as an album proper, but rather as more of a collection of loosies, a “…compilation of the stuff (he) thought was a little too much for the MCs. […] (him) flipping records that people really don’t know how to rap on but they want to rap on”.
Even before he got into solo releases in the early 2000s, Dilla’s style was remarkably charismatic and unconventional. I’m not gonna go in depth on the myriad of original techniques and quirks pioneered by him because there is already a lot of content about it out there, most of which explains his whole deal way better than I could ever hope to — I especially recommend Ollie Loops’ abridged review of his techniques, as well as Digging The Greats’ half a dozen videos on him, all of which I like a lot. Suffice to say that his odd, almost disjointed feel of swing — the famous Dilla time — is his biggest trademark, the one main thing that set him apart from everyone else at the time, was copied by producers and live drummers alike, and was partially responsible for his current everlasting fame.
His other big trademarked technique is what’s called micro-chopping. Besides being the name of my hands-down favorite rap essay outlet (shoutout my man Gino Sorcinelli), micro-chopping consists on cutting up a sample in multiple tiny slices and rearranging them in usually wild, unexpected ways. It might sound similar to that old 80s Bomb Squad thing with “…minute chopping of samples into tiny little stabs rather than entire phrases”, but there’s a significant difference: in the more modern variant of the technique, most or all of the material comes from the same source, which means the original loop gets rearranged based not on a continuous melodic feel, but on something else — he usually started each little chop in a kick or snare hit, and more or less acted like he was building a drum loop, and how the melodic sample got rebuild was determined by that. It’s not present in every song off of Donuts, but some of my album highlights prominently feature that, such as Airworks and Don’t Cry. Eh, so much for not going in depth on his techniques, I guess.
Talking about micro-chopping is important, though, not just when it comes to Donuts, but Jay Dee’s trajectory as a whole. It wasn’t exactly invented by him, but the way he did it set him apart, and that applies to a lot of other stuff about his art too. As mentioned, Dilla himself considered most of the beats in here to be a tad too difficult and weird for regular rapping, and I must say I mostly agree with him; it’s not that the joints in here are mind-bending pieces of unprecedented complexity, because they aren’t, but most if not all of them do be more than a little too busy and full of little switch-ups to make it hard for your run-of-the-mill rapper to sit comfortably upon them, even when compared with his other instrumental releases such as Dillatronic. And there’s also their speed: many joints in here are remarkably fast and frantic when compared to Dilla’s other stuff, with some extra help from the very busy drum loops, reaching an almost jungle-esque feel at times.
The real meat on Donuts’ bones, though, is the absolutely bonkers sample cutting. It’s not really a point of contention at all, I don’t think, but it bears repeating: Jay did what few if any other people would even think of doing, with the way he cut up and rearranged the chops in here. It’s hard to explain in words, way harder than talking about rapping — after all, the base of rapping is words, but not the same can be said about beatmaking — but there really is a different approach to it, in most if not all tracks off of Donuts. As an aspiring beatmaker myself, it makes me think of persistence, of meticulous dedication, of repetitive trial and error until a good groove is created from a collection of sliced sound, something definitely very much worthy of respect.
One particularly important detail is how he deals with vocals and phrases from the original source material. As is known, this is an album with no rapping whatsoever in it, with the only human voices present in it coming from samples. Nothing too uncommon, sure, but Dilla did it in a remarkably deeper way than most, purposefully re-signifying words and sentences into new ones (DJ Shadow, another one of my favorite instrumental hip-hop musicians, does that a lot too). A bunch of examples are carefully dissected and explained on YouTube videos and such (I particularly like this one), and I also won’t be going deeply into it, but it really is yet another thing he took to the next level. Simply put, he managed to effectively not just make music out of samples, but also to make his own new lyrics out of the same samples too, and if that’s not some incredibly advanced occult beatmaking magic, I don’t know what it.
Some interesting examples that have been thoroughly examined before are how he makes Jadakiss’ “is that real” line from his song Why sound like he’s saying “is death real” on Stop!, which does sound like an allusion to his impending passing, or how he cuts “Johnny, don’t do it” from 10CC’s eponymous song into “Johnny, do it” on Waves, allegedly a message of respect and encouragement to his younger brother John Yancey, who did follow his big bro’s example and got into producing and rapping under the pen name Illa J — not to mention my personal favorite, the “light up the spliffs” built out of “his heart does flips” on Lightworks.
Apart from the impressive technical mastery, it all hints at a somewhat hidden facet of Donuts: the fact that he knew he was at a terminal stage, having spent most of 2005 going in and out of hospitals, and that it was likely the last ever record of his own he’d ever see out in the street. It’s never really made explicit, but it’s kind of in there in spirit: it could be wishful thinking, but it feel to me like even the vast majority of “happy” songs in here have this melancholic undertone to them, this subjacent vibe that worms its way into your brain and fashions a weird, quirky, intriguing, very complex mood out of such simple source material.
As said before, it can be kinda hard for me to write about instrumental music (as per my Ulver review series), especially in such a lyrics-centric genre like hip-hop. Granted, much like every other review on this series, I didn’t set out to make a comprehensive exploration of every little detail in here, but rather to try and explain my general impressions and takeaways from it. Essentially, Donuts is to me about feeling good with your art and creation: the music is unassuming but deep, complex but not pretentious, pleasant but not easy, laid-back but not soporific, and very weird when it wants to. A snare is substituted by an open hi-hat, a sample in 6/8 is unceremoniously cut down to size and transformed into a steady 4/4 loop, BPMs and song structures are all over the place, and the general experience of listening to Donuts is one of amusement, relaxation and marveling at James Yancey’s talents and legacy. Without a doubt, a beattape for the ages.
Favorite tracks
Workinonit: it might be because it’s the first full track after the intro (outro?), but this song just screams Donuts for me. I’ve always loved the fast vocal chops and complex sectioning, which was actually the work of this album’s secret second producer, Jeff Jank, who glued together two beats with the same sample. Great mood is the ideal introduction to the whole experience to follow.
Lightworks: legendary chops and sci-fi-esque foley effects and uncanny sounds, as well as that cheeky line about lighting a spliff, also make this one of the most iconic tracks on this joint, and I’ll always have a soft spot for it.
Don’t Cry: my undisputed favorite Dilla track, no questions asked. The way he just lets the sample play unadulterated for the first forty seconds, only to then swerve into some absolutely bonkers micro-chopping the likes of which were never before seen in the realm? Yeah, no way around it, this is it, he is him, and I’m glad to be me and have the opportunity to enjoy this. Have a great day.
