J Dilla - Donuts

J Dilla - DonutsDonuts began simply enough as an idea to turn a particularly good demo beat tape into a full length release, and has since became a classic hip hop album, one of the defining works of the artist's life. 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

Hardcore Will Never Die

” – Pop Matters

as it morphs from two gently intersecting synth lines into a pounding

What do you do when pain blots out joy

Far from just a narrative trope

Benefitting from Albini’s dry

Influenced by a diverse background of Italo

hypnotic opener "Hunter" finds Mancari singing to a ghost from her past

Neglected for decades by all but the most devoted collectors of Afro music

Post-Nuclear Mind Music

and Jamaican dub into mellifluous harmony

its songs starting and stopping unexpectedly