15 Years Later, J Dilla's 'Donuts' Continues to Inspire
Hip hop would not be the same without this landmark album
Next time you’re listening to “lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to,” know that the genre would be nowhere without J Dilla.
This Sunday will be the 15th anniversary that the legendary hip hop producer released his landmark album Donuts. Tragically, J Dilla would be dead three days later, dying from complications related to a rare blood disease and lupus.
James Dewitt Yancey, aka Jay Dee aka J Dilla, was born and raised in Detroit, the son of two musicians; his dad, a jazz bassist, performed during Harlem Globetrotters halftime shows, and his mother a former opera singer.
J Dilla got his start when he met Amp Fiddler, longtime keyboardist for George Clinton’s Parliament and Funkadelic. Fiddler lent J Dilla his MIDI sampler and sequencer. While on the 1994 Lollapalooza tour, Fiddler introduced Dilla to Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest, to who J Dilla gave a demo of his group, Slum Village. Many years later, Phife Dawg from A Tribe Called Quest would comment:
"Watching his day-to-day operation on how he worked: wake up, shower, eat breakfast, run to the record (store) for a few hours, come back, pick the record he wanted to sample, and make a beat in 10 minutes flat — it was crazy," Phife says. "I just remember begging him for 'The Light' beat he gave Common. Once he said Common, I let it go. That beat was perfect for Common and my favorite that he played that day."
The next year he made headlines when his duo with Phat Kat, called 1st Down, signed with Payday Records and became the first Detroit hip hop group to sign with a major label. They released one single before the label folded.
While Slum Village released their debut in 1997, J Dilla was already building industry credits and reputation with projects for A Tribe Called Quest, Janet Jackson, De La Soul, and my personal favorite, The Pharcyde’s “Runnin.” In 2000, he became a member of Soulquarians, a collective formed by J Dilla, Questlove of The Roots, D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, Q-Tip, Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and few others. Based out of Electric Lady Studios in New York City, the crew collaborated on each other’s projects, giving even more spotlight to J Dilla.
After releasing his solo debut, Welcome to Detroit, in 2001, J Dilla began collaborating with Madlib, who called Dilla the “Coltrane of hip hop,” and the duo eventually would release an album under Jaylib. Unfortunately, around this time, J Dilla was diagnosed with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura to compound with his previously known lupus.
After disappearing from the public eye over the next few years, J Dilla worked on instrumental beats while in and out of the hospital, writing and recording most of Donuts while immobile at Cedar-Sinai in Los Angeles.
Having worked on projects released by indie label Stones Throw in the past, the label was ready to release Donuts when their distributor EMI pulled the record under the idea that instrumental hip hop by an underground producer wouldn’t sell. Finally, on February 7, 2006, J Dilla’s 32nd birthday, the album was released. Stones Throw’s art director Jeff Jank designed the album's cover, as J Dilla’s physical condition had become so dire, there were no usable photos from the last few years.
Donuts, named for J Dilla’s love of the food (his uncle, a lifelong chef, and baker, has since opened a bakery in Detroit in his memory), isn’t so much an album, but a mixtape. At 31 tracks and just under 45 minutes long, it’s both frenetic in its chops, and soothing with its soul, funk, and jazz influences.
It’s Dilla’s mastery of the Akai MPC 3000 that sets Donuts and his other beats apart. The MPC 3000 has been a go-to piece of equipment for an endless number of hip hop figures since the 80s, but J Dilla completely reframed how the sampler is used. By turning off the quantifier, which keeps the beats in perfect time, he could place beats wherever - often falling behind the tempo. The Root’s Questlove has described Dilla’s use of the kick drum as sounding like “a drunk three-year-old” that revolutionized how he now plays drums.
While most beatmakers in the 90s were exclusively pulling samples from 70s soul records, Donuts is full of samples from many unexpected genres. Take “Workinonit,” the most known track, for example. It pulls from early rap with “Six Figures” by Skillz & Ras Kass, “The New Style” by The Beastie Boys, and “King of the Beats” by Mantronix. The track also includes a relic out of novelty hip hop with “Buffalo Gals” by Malcolm McClaren (known as the manager for the Sex Pistols but got into hip hop after attending a block party).
Most interestingly, J Dilla gave the track gets its signature guitar part and vocal track from 70s English rock band 10cc and their song “Worst Band in the World.” It’s a pick from left field, something J Dilla became known for. He was untouchable at combining genres, with other samples on the record coming from Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, The Jackson 5, and The Isley Brothers. It even includes a live snippet from Frank Zappa’s “Dance Contest” on the track “Mash,” resulting in an early example of lofi hip hop.
There’s another piece to the Donuts story involving his mother, Maureen Yancey, better known as Ma Dukes. When his health was failing him, Dilla moved to Los Angeles to live with Common. Ma Dukes ended up traveling to Los Angeles to take care of him as his health worsened.
In the process, she lost her home in Detroit and spent years trying to settle his estate, which was a mess due to a large outstanding tax debt. He had two young daughters, who were supposed to be a part of the estate payout, but didn’t receive anything due to taxes and medical bills. The lawyers of his estate also aggressively went after royalties payments, a complicated process because J Dilla made tons of CDs full of beats and would hand them out to friends for use. His estate also continues to be sued for copyright infringement, including that 10cc sample.
Ma Dukes has had better days recently, though she also suffers from lupus. In 2016, she donated his MPC 3000 sampler and custom Moog synthesizer, now on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. She also started the James Dewitt Yancey Foundation, which focuses on improving life for youth in 10 cities. Like everyone else these days, she’s also selling CBD products.
A decade and a half since his death, the hip hop world continues to look to Donuts and J Dilla for inspiration, with Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, J Cole, MF DOOM (R.I.P.), Flying Lotus, Thundercat, and the previously mentioned artists amongst his fans. His work was even used for “bumps” by Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim in the mid-2000s, where I first became familiar with him.
A major player in popularizing the neo-soul genre, the music world would not be where it is today without J Dilla and Donuts. Last week, Madlib released his newest record, Sound Ancestors, an album that pulls from Donuts and includes the tribute track “Two for 2 - For Dilla.”
Though he never made it in the industry financially and died at a young age, J Dilla’s legacy is up there with the best and changed the way people make music, whether they realize it or not.
Fantastic article! Truly a pioneer.