The book is at once a worthy biography of Dilla’s early life, a lush blueprint of Donuts‘s sample sources and a moving personal essay on what the record might actually be about.įerguson is very quick in his book to insist that Donuts is not hip-hop music in the traditional sense. Last month that discussion took a giant step forward with the release of the newest installment in the 33 1/3 book series, written by freelance culture writer Jordan Ferguson and dedicated entirely to Dilla’s magnum opus. The album is so loaded with brilliant moments and was made in such a heavy, saddening circumstance that Donuts demands discussion. It’s impossible to take it all in in isolation. Donuts‘s 31 tracks of beatmaking brilliance take listeners through the throes of pleasure and pain on a trip into the mind of a genius who was running out of time.Īfter enough listens, you have to talk about it. What makes Dilla’s final masterpiece both deeply difficult and eternally rewarding isn’t its structure but its atmosphere, a scattershot of tension and release that only builds as each minute passes by. It isn’t the breakneck cutting from track to track. It’s not the blaring sirens or the tempo stutters. J Dilla‘s Donuts will never be an easy listen.
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