Donuts: The E.P. (J Rocc's Picks - SXSW 2006 - Adult Swim)

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There should have been more records like <i>Donuts</i>, many more. When J Dilla, aka Detroit’s James Yancey, made the album, he was 31 years old and widely celebrated as a producer of rare talent, having worked with Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, and De La Soul, among many other. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure jazz, funk, and soul, and, as a talented drummer in his own right, he brought a rare sense of groove to the samples he chopped up on his trusty Akai MPC. An entire tradition of beat music has been constructed atop the unique sense of swing that Dilla brought to the classic boom-bap cadence; “Dilla-esque” has become shorthand for a certain sensibility—a mixture of taste, timing, and restraint—that was present in all his production, and almost impossible to imitate, no matter how many have tried. .

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The Clerk says

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