J Dilla Donuts (Limited Edition) Vinyl Me Please 12", 2x LP Mint Stones Throw

$

46

This listing is for a Vinyl Me, Please edition of J Dilla's Donuts.  This LP has never been opened and comes with VMP overlay and artwork.  This edition is w/o the Swoosh effect and has been pressed properly.  OUT OF PRINT version!

Here's a review from rateyourmusic.com
Tempetz Aug 20 2012 +14 Score: 5

Do you know how you make a statement? Like, sure you can always make sure you get heard of and get your points across just fine, but that's not making a statement. That is all about saying something major, something game-changing, in the most subtle way possible. You need to make it seem like you weren't even trying to come up with some big universal truth but did it anyway, make it feel like you were genuine with your thoughts and everything. So when it comes to my favorite music, my favorite hip hop, my favorite art in general, they are usually about things that can come up with these Statements. If there ever was one guy who could come up with them, it was J Dilla. There are always loudmouths like Yeezy and Jay-Z who do have the talent to back up all the shit talk, but Jay Dee wasn't about that kind of thing. He was probably my favorite producer even before I was familiar with his name, Like Water for Chocolate was already a big ass favorite from him and without realizing it most of my favorite hip hop classic songs were of his making. Back in the day, Donuts was a pretty awkward choice for me as I really didn't know what to expect from it, a producer who had never really broken into the common rap knowledge suddenly had come up with a critically successful piece and after several listens of it I learn that the motherfucker died 3 days after the release! This same story applies to so many others who nowadays ride Dilla's dick like it was their daytime job, and I guess I am one of those "Dilla changed my life" hobos who pay their respect where it's due only when we're forced to do it. Why didn't you adore him while he was alive? 

But then again, J Dilla wasn't about publicity or pop charts, he was about the music. Sure he innovated the use of "clap" drums and thus inspired a vast majority of 00s chart music, sure dozens of greatest rap LPs have his production on them (everything The Ummah were dealing with, Pharcyde's #2 LP, Soulquarians LPs, his solo discography, Jaylib, Slum Village...), sure he should have got all the praise before his death and not posthumously cause he fucking deserved it, but the only one who didn't care about his publicity was Dilla himself. On Donuts he lets the beats speak for themselves, yes these beats that were made mostly on a hospital bed with a crappy 45 player, his vinyl collection and Boss SP-303 sampler. Nothing more, nothing less. Hip hop is all about creativity, ability to make the most simple 7 second chop of some obscure 60s soul song sound dope as fuck over hard drums. Few talents can go beyond that though, and Donuts is one rare case of music that makes a Statement. Dilla was a master of those, but Donuts is easily his most important, most touching, most personal album, even if he never had the chance to say it out loud. 

Take the tempo changes on "Time: The Donut of the Heart". The part of "Stop" where the song actually stops for a second and then keeps on going "think about what you doing". Using the Mantronix "King of the Beats" siren everywhere on this album in the classic Public Enemy style, or the moaning girl on "Workinonit" and "Time". The fucked up, raw, intimate tear-wrenching soul of "One for Ghost". "Geek Down", the most unique use of ESG's "UFO" of all time. The fact that the album is called Donuts not because Dilla would call his beats "donuts", but because he loved doughnuts and they were among his favorite consumables. The fact that you don't want to hear these beats rapped over ever, except by Black Thought. Man I could go on all night with this shit... But it all has a meaning to it. These compositions were meant to be this way. All the tricks, all the little details, all that background shit, it feels like Donuts (or more like Jay Dee himself) wants to tell a story, it wants to speak to us, but we can't understand it in the traditional understanding of human language or grammar doctrine. Luckily, our ears can communicate with it. Our brain can communicate with it. My heart. At his most naked, most inspired, most delicate, on a hospital bed, Dilla reminded us that you can talk all you want about the production values of his music or how he's supposed to be mentioned right side by side with Premo and Dre when it comes to the greatest rap producers ever, but his music isn't about charts or measurements of facts. It all comes down to one thing.

Feeling. Soul. Love.

Donuts.

Dilla loved what he did all his life, and I have grown to love him and his music the same way that thousands of other modern Dilla fans have. So many times I've put some effort and tried to come up with something clever about Donuts, like "a crowning achievement" or "a legendary album" or "modern classic". "Game changer". "Groundbreaker". None of that shit is relevant though, just like my writing of this album doesn't come off a bit objective or anti-sentimental. You see, this is the secret of Donuts. Just a little funny detail that doesn't really seem all that weird when you first notice it. You finish hearing all of the "donuts", all of these beautiful heart-wrenching donuts, and stop thinking about their impact on modern instrumental hip hop, and instead realize that the last beat of the album sounds exactly like the start of it. You're supposed to be on the last freaking song of the album, yet again Dilla tells you that actually you're listening to the "Donuts intro". If you want to get the outro, you need to play the whole thing again, because the first song is the "outro" here. What do you do, if you're like me and don't think of music as something rational, something that one can measure and put in words?

You press play. One more time.

Thanks Jay, for everything. Rest in peace.