Because the songs are all like 90 seconds long. And the loops are all at totally oddangles. The whole album sounds like a bunch of skipping rare-groove records with someone scratching Joeski Love on the top.
― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Thursday, 9 February 2006 16:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 9 February 2006 16:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 9 February 2006 16:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 9 February 2006 16:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:10 (eighteen years ago) link
< / complementary ethan threadbait >
― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:41 (eighteen years ago) link
i wish he'd released it as-is on lp for djs and such and done it as a mixtape for CD. something tells me i will eventually shell out for this and end up never listening to it (same as all every slum village thing since "fantastic")
― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 18:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 18:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 9 February 2006 18:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 18:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 9 February 2006 18:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 18:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 18:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 9 February 2006 18:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 18:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 18:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 9 February 2006 18:59 (eighteen years ago) link
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/casualt/More%20Fun%20Bags/racist.gif
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 18:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― ETHAN FAGGETT, Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― ETHAN FAGGETT, Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― ETHAN FAGGETT, Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― ETHAN FAGGETT, Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― ETHAN FAGGETT, Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:24 (eighteen years ago) link
J Dilla's eagerly awaited Donuts, the follow-up to 2001's Welcome 2 Detroit (released as Jay Dee), is, like its predecessor, a stark departure from the cozy-socks-and-Xbox feel of his former group, Slum Village. In fact, Dilla, if anything, is imposing a meta-rap bent on neo-soul, assaulting the senses in ways unseemly for a guy who used to work with Q-Tip. The drums, though remarkably fluid, are lighter, domineered by dense, abrasive samples that are sequenced with a sense of swing. Percussive end pieces are shorn cheese-grater sharp, then appended to sickly spliced moans. The end result is akin to Norman Smith and DJ Shadow sitting in on a RZA-produced session-- spry, voiceless prog-hop by any other name.
Opener "Workinonit" comes on like a Rubin-produced take on Schoolhouse Rock. Clang-y guitars give way to doubled-up groans and what sounds like a back-masked Zulu chant. The sample, supplied by '60s soulsters Them, is diced with manic precision, and around the 2:00 mark, the melody builds to a climax, fading, with echo-y vocal bits, into bodiless abyss. Equally engaging is "Anti-American Graffiti", which combines lighters-up, love-not-war humility with a track both wistful and world-weary: A crazed voice spouts end-of-the-world admonishments like some disenfranchised apparition, colliding with somber guitars.
"Don't Cry" finds Dilla taking sprightly, blu-lite soul crooning and flipping it counter-cockeyed: "If Blue Magic or Whoever could see me now!" First he plays the original, then throws in the "Now, you play it and I'll show you how my voice would have made it unbelievable!" bit, before gently lifting its face off. It's chest thumping, to be sure, like the Copa shot in Goodfellas or Bigger and Deffer. And it's courteous. Similarly cordial is "Time: The Donut of the Heart", where he turns the Jackson 5's "All I Do Is Think of You" into a lucid dream-- the song's intro is now with the chorus it always coveted. Says ?uestlove: "[J Dilla] time compresses Michael and Jermaine's ad-libs with the uneasy ease of a tightrope-walker, with oil shoes on, crossing one 90-story building to another, after eight shots of [Patrone]." I'm sayin'.
Not that Donuts deals with only obvious sample sources-- "The Twister (Huh, What)" is the sound of flu-sick flutes chiming in time to a busted weathervane; "Waves", a hiccuping Hare Krishna class. It's Dilla's show-and-tell method, however, that's most effective, because it illustrates how he's, more or less, upgrading soul music-- we get to see how he unpacked its bag, what spots he told it it missed. This approach also allows Dilla to pay homage to the selfsame sounds he's modernized; the drums are light, to reflect the original sound from which he's borrowing. In that sense, Donuts is pure postmodern art-- which was hip-hop's aim in the first place.
-Will Dukes, February 9, 2006
― ETHAN FAGGETT, Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:26 (eighteen years ago) link
patrin alert
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:27 (eighteen years ago) link
You know the old dystopian prediction that cities of the future would be these huge ramshackle constructions, piled on the buildings of years past? Well, the reason that hasn't happened is that the "new" world would rather throw out the "old" unless they're too poor not to use it. Really the only old shit you see around now is preserved up all untouchable, museum-style. Practical application of existing structures just isn't viable in this modern urban landscape of ours.
Look at the cover of Mike Ladd's Welcome to the Afterfuture. It's an awful electrical mess, superimposed onto old building walls. Ladd's music reflects the artwork with chunky, pharmaceutical beats that sneak past dim strings. It's nasty New Orleans bounce with lyrics about listening to bootlegs of the Fall. And even though it looks kinda like a Marlboro ad, it's still a dope cover.
The record starts with "5000 Miles West of the Future," violently switching up from an analog keyboard assault to a sweeping ambient flow and back again, all while jazzy horn progressions seep through the background and make like Sun Ra handwriting. Ladd's rhymes on Afterfuture are at their most conversational, especially in breaks where he casually explains, "I'm gonna steal from the foreign merchant.../ For the cinnamon peeler's wife.../ Like I was bedding down with Isis."
As the buzzing keyboard stabs fade out, "Airwave Hysteria" begins, and the rest is swapped for rising strings and faux-Hindu chants, drifting yet again into some funky, bugged-out Casio shit over which Ladd first hits his lyrical stride, MCing with self-assured flow and coming with dense rhyme content to match ("Breakbeats from Thailand down over by the Ku Klux Klan chapter in Croatia/ We've come a long way from migrating crustaceans/ Generations of relations, history of violence/ I talked along in Babylon, next time I'll try silence"). Unlike many poet-turned-MCs, Ladd manages to go off like a motherfucker, and it all ends with a classic scratch breakdown, cut open with more of those damned trilling strings of his.
"Planet 10" breaks from these jams to bust on the simple beauty of a simple song, an intricate nautilus of synth tones and deep-space vocals stretching over junkyard ambience to some kind of nappy-haired slow-grind trajectory. Fuck neo-soul, this is post-soul, only somehow better than something called that should ever be.
Nothing else here really touches these first three tracks, but the rest comes close-- the lilting rush of the mostly instrumental "Takes More than 41," and the slow-to-start "To the Moon's Contractor," a song more summery than its interstellar title might lead you to believe. "I Feel Like $100" sounds like Warp Records unfavorites Red Snapper with actual forward drive and rhythmic interest, even with its dodgy "Strawberry Fields" reference.
Amazingly, Ladd goes for delf on every cut except the Company Flow-assisted "Bladeruners," a violent fucking storm of next-level racial and sexual articulation, wide string samples criss-crossing like frozen rivers, and a plodding organic bassline. It's perhaps the closest to rap traditionalism the album ever flirts with-- something for BET to sneak in on that lazy Thursday afternoon to give you a Videodrome-style brain tumor.
"It's all confused and beautiful" are the lines Ladd chooses to open "Feb. 4 '99 (For All Those Killed by Cops)," and it's exactly that. Besides Ladd's waxen imagery of childhood memories, the lyrics are mostly befuddling and his delivery is unconvincingly wide-eyed enough to fuel a thousand Björk videos. I know good and well that Ladd's trying to make this closing track a "Strange Fruit" for a future of money, women and computers, and I'll be damned if he doesn't actually come shockingly close. It's a stunning end to the album.
For all the obvious influences ("Starship Nigga" is pretty much just Björk's "Pluto" instilled with spaced-out black rage), the album still manages to sound pleasantly new, taking all the bits from the past that demand to be resurrected, and recontextualizing them into Ladd's own brainspace. Of course, this sort of thing has been done before, but I can't think of anything that's ever sounded as genuinely beautiful at the same time. It's all the wires from the liner notes covering children while they spread Christ-like onto antique brownstones. It's the genius of Ezra Pound and Greg Nice over tinny, rolling drums, and the awkwardness of my first paragraph over beautiful dimethicone symphonies. It's Mike Ladd assembling his personal afterfuture over the ramshackle remains of a distant past. Fresh!
-Ethan P.
― ETHAN FAGGETT, Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― ,,, Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:32 (eighteen years ago) link
Am I the only one that likes the similiar Madlib album that came out a few months ago better than Donuts?
― Post-Rodney (But no one called it that at the time) (R. J. Greene), Thursday, 7 September 2006 02:30 (seventeen years ago) link
The Shining is sitting real well with me right now.
He should've done a lot more.
No doubt. How is the rest of the Steve Spacek album after "Dollar," and did Dilla do any more beats on it? I've been going to this club lately where they use that song as an end of the night wind-down thing, I love it more each time.
― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 7 September 2006 02:32 (seventeen years ago) link
i love the first jaydee produced one. the 'jazz' one you're talking about is called Kamaal the Abstract. i think it's pretty great, and this new one is pretty similar but just not as good to me.
jay dee only produced 'dollars' on the spacek album. spacek produced most of it himself. i think it's pretty good. here's a thread i started about it. The new Steve Spacek album is really good...
― jaxon (jaxon), Thursday, 7 September 2006 02:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― Post-Rodney (But no one called it that at the time) (R. J. Greene), Thursday, 7 September 2006 03:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 7 September 2006 03:49 (seventeen years ago) link
― Andy_K (Andy_K), Thursday, 7 September 2006 07:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― i am not a nugget (stevie), Thursday, 7 September 2006 07:57 (seventeen years ago) link
deej was right: this isn't so much like the avalanches record.
― the art ensemble of chicago house (vahid), Friday, 8 September 2006 06:59 (seventeen years ago) link
i've been listening to this album a lot the past couple days, and i just can't believe how great it is. things i like about it:
1. the anti-cohesive cohesiveness, i came to really enjoy the abrupt track changes, there is definitely a flow to this album that isn't apparent at first 2. the different textures of the static in the background of the samples is a very pleasing sound to me, especially on the more relaxed tracks. that combined with off-kilter unusual melodies and sample choices, such an awesome sound. 3. the sentimental part of me hears it as a kind of nostalgic montage that was meaningful to dilla, like his life flashing before his eyes 4. the brevity of each track pulls me into listening to the whole album instead of skipping around. one track just makes me want to hear the next one because i can already hear the transition coming up, but at the same time i don't get bored of the transitions because they're still so suprising. it also just gives the album a really unique "shape" (i guess that ties into #1) 5. tracks: 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 (a good example of the static-y textures thing that i like), 15, 16... i guess listing tracks is kinda pointless, i pretty much love all of em
i've been listening to the shining and welcome 2 detroit, but neither have grabbed me as much as this one. any recommendations?
― later arpeggiator, Saturday, 9 February 2008 20:22 (sixteen years ago) link
i cant believe this thread. the avalanches? dilla sounding like madlib? what were you guys smoking? Donuts is the man's masterpiece, i like much of his shit but 2 years later that album still gets mad plays from everyone i know. that shit has enchanted people i know who arent even really hiphop fans.
only the post above mine has really hit the nail on the head, and it took 2 years. when i first listened to Donuts, it was the day it came out. i skipped through the tracks on vinyl, and i wasn't feeling it. i listened to it the next day on CD and realized that this was the obviously superior method for listening to it and i bought it immediately. it's now one of my top 10 albums of all time in any genre. the ebb and flow of emotions over the record is outstanding. it is so sad, beautiful, dark, happy, sexy, dirty, and deep, all at the same time.
for me, the guy was the greatest man to rock a sampler. but i've loved him forever, been rocking Welcome 2 Detroit since that shit came out, a total classic as well. between those two records and Fantastic Vol 1 alone, the guy is the greatest hiphop producer of all time. when you throw in other singles of his like "fuck the police" and shit he did for other cats, he just cant be topped.
also, i saw someone upthread ask if he had been listening to theo parrish records before making donuts. id assume it was quite the opposite, though im sure dilla heard theo as well. if you look on youtube, there is a video of Waajeed (who was dilla's boy) going record shopping in Melodies and Memories and he talks about the classic detroit records by Moodymann and Carl Craig. those cats know about detroit shit for real.
― pipecock, Sunday, 10 February 2008 03:52 (sixteen years ago) link
this is a good record
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Sunday, 10 February 2008 04:09 (sixteen years ago) link
the ever-emerging herbish newjackness of rap critics
-- ,,, Thursday, February 9, 2006 6:55 PM
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Sunday, 10 February 2008 04:10 (sixteen years ago) link
"someone"
― moonship journey to baja, Sunday, 10 February 2008 04:18 (sixteen years ago) link
those cats know about detroit shit for real.
there was a really old benji b radio broadcast w/the slum village cats talking about music and they said in detroit there wasn't really a differentiation between listening to techno and listening to hip hop. it was all just good music to them.
― jaxon, Sunday, 10 February 2008 06:22 (sixteen years ago) link
that shit has enchanted people i know who arent even really hiphop fans.
ahh yes the sign of a great hip hop producer
― deej, Sunday, 10 February 2008 17:23 (sixteen years ago) link
i prefer reading a forum where this album's perfection is in question because the obligation im supposed to feel to call this the 'a love supreme' of hip-hop when i read soulstrut or wherever else is real obnoxious to me, even tho i do like this record
― deej, Sunday, 10 February 2008 17:24 (sixteen years ago) link
here i was thinking that alex posting old fennessey columns on the graduation thread was a landmark event :(
― J0rdan S., Sunday, 10 February 2008 19:04 (sixteen years ago) link
how did he die? that's sad...
-- M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Sunday, 12 February 2006 15:41 (1 year ago) Bookmark Link
He had his heart broken by this thread, and just faded away.
-- Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Sunday, 12 February 2006 16:44 (1 year ago) Bookmark Link
^^^Classic Passantino
― Dom Passantino, Sunday, 10 February 2008 19:13 (sixteen years ago) link
love love love this album
― sleep, Sunday, 10 February 2008 19:52 (sixteen years ago) link
deej - if dilla praise annoys you NEVER go to okayplayer - they literally worship him there
― The Brainwasher, Sunday, 10 February 2008 19:55 (sixteen years ago) link
"ahh yes the sign of a great hip hop producer"
it is the sign of making great music. when someone can do something that is within a genre but its appeal is far
"i prefer reading a forum where this album's perfection is in question because the obligation im supposed to feel to call this the 'a love supreme' of hip-hop when i read soulstrut or wherever else is real obnoxious to me, even tho i do like this record
-- deej"
i mean, if you want to question the greatness of an awesome record, that's up to you. you can think whatever you want about this album, but my guess is that this record is only going to be more revered as time goes on, and for good reason.
― pipecock, Sunday, 10 February 2008 20:10 (sixteen years ago) link
"there was a really old benji b radio broadcast w/the slum village cats talking about music and they said in detroit there wasn't really a differentiation between listening to techno and listening to hip hop. it was all just good music to them.
-- jaxon"
the detroit scene is insane. it really is something to experience. if you ever get a chance to hear it, Waajeed did a mix CD for 555 Soul that is all electro and non-hiphop. its a dope mix.
― pipecock, Sunday, 10 February 2008 20:12 (sixteen years ago) link
its not that i dont think its good, and i in fact think it is excellent - its that i think its a beat tape and getting all 'omg transcendent' about it is weird
and i love dilla
― deej, Sunday, 10 February 2008 20:18 (sixteen years ago) link
"its not that i dont think its good, and i in fact think it is excellent - its that i think its a beat tape and getting all 'omg transcendent' about it is weird
but it isnt just a beat tape. what i like about it is that it mines some similar emotional territory to DJ Shadow's Endtroducing, but in a completely different manner. Shadow's stuff is long, epic, and structured. Dilla did it short, loopy, and choppy. i think the tracks that were on Donuts that have also been released with people rapping over them show that the beats on Donuts are certainly not bettered by being made into a song instead of a part of the big collage that is Donuts. the way the little vocal snippets change the atmosphere, the way the tracks go together, it is very impressive.
― pipecock, Sunday, 10 February 2008 20:23 (sixteen years ago) link
beat tape my ass; his beat tapes are good but this has so much more going on
― winston, Sunday, 10 February 2008 20:55 (sixteen years ago) link
yeah, people love this record for a reason, and i don't think its just dilla's legacy
― later arpeggiator, Sunday, 10 February 2008 21:02 (sixteen years ago) link
like his life flashing before his eyes
this is pretty apt
― winston, Sunday, 10 February 2008 21:47 (sixteen years ago) link
Have folks heard this bit of awesomeness: http://www.wevegotthejazz.com/?p=10616
It's an awesome live performance of Donuts front to back.
― matt2, Thursday, 20 January 2011 20:29 (thirteen years ago) link
should i listen to the avalanches?
― team jaxon (jaxon), Sunday, February 12, 2006 12:17 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
did u ever do this?
― *gets the power* (deej), Thursday, 20 January 2011 21:01 (thirteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qXm4nzyev8
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Thursday, 20 January 2011 21:03 (thirteen years ago) link
amazing thread
― fruit of the goon (k3vin k.), Thursday, 20 January 2011 21:09 (thirteen years ago) link
lol @ pipecock's dilla changed my t-shirt essay upthread
― *gets the power* (deej), Thursday, 20 January 2011 21:17 (thirteen years ago) link
I would like to point out that deej was otm on this thread
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Thursday, 20 January 2011 21:29 (thirteen years ago) link
Guys the main reason I listened to this album is it seemed to be about my mortal enemy, the donut.
― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Thursday, 20 January 2011 22:17 (thirteen years ago) link
should i listen to the avalanches?― team jaxon (jaxon), Sunday, February 12, 2006 12:17 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
did u ever do this?― *gets the power* (deej), Thursday, January 20, 2011 9:01 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
this never happened
― jaxon, Thursday, 20 January 2011 23:49 (thirteen years ago) link
hatoo bad. i honestly dont know if you would like it or not
― *gets the power* (deej), Friday, 21 January 2011 01:05 (thirteen years ago) link
Does anyone have a (preferably unmixed) copy of the Okayplayer/DJ Soul "Assorted Donuts" that used to be up for free download? U will be my friend 4 life
― Pompoussin (admrl), Friday, 27 May 2011 16:38 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=assorted+donuts+rar+mediafire&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=
― just sayin, Friday, 27 May 2011 18:55 (twelve years ago) link
I love jamming this in the morning
― love, light, and walkabout-thinking (admrl), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 17:34 (twelve years ago) link
Steppin' to the a.m.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VgOvNkqFe8
― Andy K, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 18:45 (twelve years ago) link
happy bday JD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek_cufWYvjE
― flappy bird, Thursday, 7 February 2019 18:09 (five years ago) link
Best motherfucking ever.
― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Friday, 8 February 2019 00:12 (five years ago) link
lol ethan padgett was such a shithead
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Friday, 8 February 2019 18:02 (five years ago) link
nah, yung padgett was a god
― the late great, Friday, 8 February 2019 19:12 (five years ago) link
J Dilla’s classic Donuts track “Workinonit” is the subject of a new copyright infringement lawsuit https://t.co/RMz9QWvolp— Pitchfork (@pitchfork) September 1, 2020
boooooooooooo
― whiney on the moon (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 1 September 2020 23:37 (three years ago) link