J Dilla - Donuts (2006) [CD & 2020 Vinyl]

Completed during a year in which J Dilla spent mostly in a hospital bed at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Donuts would gain particular poignancy when, only three days after it's release, February 10, 2006, the artist passed away, losing his battle with a rare blood disease.

Although J Dilla is respected mainly for his intrumental work, he has never crafted an entire album meant to be released insturmental until now. Donuts is accessible without being typical or easily defined: it's hip-hop without MC's, electronic music that at times sounds like a 70s soul mixtape. It's J Dilla doing what he does best....crafting hip-hop, soul and electronic music into his own sound. Stones. 2006.

Tragically, Donuts was released just three days before J Dilla (aka Jay Dee) passed away from complications arising from lupus--he was only 32. As one of his last projects, though, Donuts is a fitting reflection of Dilla's creativity and an apt tribute (however unintentional) to a career spent as the quintissential producer's producer. Unlike some of Dilla's previous instrumental albums, such as Welcome To Detroit, the songs here are less finished and polished pieces and more caught up in mid-creative motion. Unlike the soft, filtered sound he was known for in the mid-1990s, for Donuts he leaves a variety of soul and jazz loops in plain view but splices and reworks them as a set of sonic jigsaw puzzles. Spontaneous but not sloppy, the capture the late producer at his best--in the throes of his own imagination, each song poised with endless possibilities. --Oliver Wang