J Dilla ‎– Donuts

One of the 20 greatest hip hop albums of all time. A case study in music creativity and engineering.

This is a pure masterpiece, wherever you're from, whatever you listen to.. Rest In Power Jay Dee..!

Damn.....After all this time the sound still holds. I remember talking to my best friend when he called me at the intersection of 118 and middlebrook and told me that Jay Dee passed. I am listening to this album as I write this and wow!!!!!! There was nothing to surpass this since this was released. I can't describe this. I tried explaining this to someone who never heard of this album and said, "imagine you were going to die and what it would sound like." I think that is a good explanation from a hip-hop perspective along with the hotness of this release. There is a reason years upon years this release is still relevant. I just purchased this digital release again to hear it and rip it as I am too lazy to search through my collection for this. Worth every penny. Do not hesitate. Hip Hop at its finest!!!!! Who needs lyricists when the beats sound this good. The sound is still personal and accessible at the same time. FYI JJ Doom. Say no more.

Masterpiece! If someone can bring back the love for hip-hop it's him!

Workin-on-it!!!

This album is hard to explain. Technical sounds yet something the casual listener could vibe too. It's awkward playing this to someone who has never heard of Jay Dee before. But what the man could do on an MPC drum machine wasn't like anything else.

This album is a masterpiece

Well, that's the short review - but I must say, this record is just one incredible journey though sound, and the use of sampling is done really well. All of the tracks are usually about 1.5/2 minutes long, and time just flies by while listening to it.

It is such a shame he passed away almost straight after this wonderful record was released. Still - this was one amazing swan-song for one of the finest producers in hip-hop.

Easily one of the finest records of the last decade.

R.I.P. J-Dilla, your productions are too amazing for words!

Very strange, listening to this when it came out. Didn't know about Dilla's condition, it just sounded like a major leap forward. This is hip hop from 2020. Listen and listen again. And then listen to all the people now coming up with similar sounds.

Basically, if you've ever liked hip-hop there is something here for you! From sampling the Beastie Boys on "The New" to chopping Mountain's "Big Red" for the 1000th time on "The Clapper", to the Raymond Scott sampling "Lightworks" and the pure sci-fi weirdness of "Airworks", this is a beautiful smorgasbord of beats!

(I'm not mentioning "Two Can Win" - it's the secret amazing track that you're just not ready for!)

I've been a fan of Jay Dee since he was making beats for the Pharcyde and Tribe back in the 90's. I picked up his first solo album "Welcome 2 Detroit" when it came out, and it is undeniably a classic. However, nothing before Donuts led me to believe that the man would come through with something like this. Donuts is remarkable in many ways. The idea of a beat tape with many short tracks doesn't seem immediately listenable, yet the cohesiveness of this album is superb. While it is hiphop, it is also psychedelic and very melancholic as well. The range of emotion expressed with some records and a sampler is completely insane. This is inarguably his masterwork, something that will be inspiring beat heads and hiphop fans for years, but it will also be accessible to the every day music fan as well because of it's great emotional power. One of the classic albums from the '00s.....

Donuts is a 31 track long soul drenched hiphop collage that might appear fragmented upon first listen, but turns into a really coherent album when played more often. Catchy hooks and psychedelic noises follow eachother in a high pace, without the album losing it's flow.
Dilla takes hiphop to a higher level. A great legacy of an extremely talented producer, that unfortunately died on a very young age.
Well recommended for anyone into (instrumental) hiphop, but also a must have for lovers of Detroit house in the Andres or Moodymann style.

Oh my God- This is a friggin Masterpiece! What a tragedy for Dilla not to be able to see how his fans are going to dig this work. This contribution to hip hop beat making is on par to what DJ Shadow did with his ground breaking Endtroducing... As the genius was the simplicity with Shadow, such genius is in the complexity with Jay Dee - A sonic mural which unfolds with calculated precision. Those 2 releases can't be farther apart in musical similarity, but it's how society will accept Dilla's piece which draws the comparison. In passing, he's unwittingly ushered in a new era for beat conductors. The bar is very high.