When people think of hip-hop music, most think about the instrumentals, the rapper’s vocals, and the sophistication of lyrics. Donuts by J Dilla appears on many “Best Hip-Hop Album” lists—but has few lyrics. 

Donuts, released in 2006, was J Dilla’s third studio album. It contains 31 short tracks–all 1 to 1.5 minutes long. Although a hip-hop album, it only contains snatches of lyrics and phrases sampled from other songs. Although not including lyrics has a degree of risk, Donuts executes it tremendously well.

The album is unique in the sense that it starts with the outro—“Donuts (Outro)”. It features a vocal repeating the word “Dilla” like a DJ scratching over a soulful beat. The beat is the same beat used in the outro of the last song of the album, “Welcome to the Show”. The real outro seamlessly transitions back to the first song, creating a “loop”, just as a donut does. 

One thing that sets Donuts apart from other albums is the use of sampling. Sampling is taking another song and implementing it into another song. A famous example is the bass line from “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice being directly taken from “Under Pressure” by Queen. Dilla creates a sense of complexity and emotion exceptionally through this.

The album provokes many different emotions throughout. Songs like “Workinonit”, “Light It”, “The New”, and “The Diff’rence” involve uptempo beats and have a sense of excitement. Other songs like “Waves”, “Stop”, “Time: The Donut of the Heart”, and “U-Love” create a sense of nostalgia and dolefulness through the melancholic beats. 

The album feels much more meaningful after learning about the circumstances in which this album was created. Dilla, who was battling TTP, a blood disorder, and Lupus, was in his hospital room recording this album. In a terrible medical state, Dilla took his equipment and kept working. The album was released on his 32nd birthday—- February 7, 2006. On February 10th, just 3 days later, he passed away.

There are, however, 3 songs on this album that stand out to me for their outstanding quality. 

The first is “Don’t Cry”. Being the 18th song on the album, it also happens to be the most streamed with nearly 28 million streams on Spotify. The song starts with a soulful beat and transitions to slow vocals taken from the song “I Can’t Stand (To See You Cry)” by The Escorts. However, as the song progresses, the beat speeds up, slows down, and constantly changes speed. The track overall has a mellow sense, filled with smooth instrumentals throughout, making it one of the album's highlights.

The second is “Bye.”, the 29th song on the album. It contains a relatively laid-back beat, featuring some vocals repeating the same phrase, “I feel you” throughout the song. The beat was later sampled in the song “So Far To Go” in his album Won’t Do, which was released later in the year. The beat can best be described as warm and pleasant. However, relating the song to his passing, “Bye.” may have been Dilla’s way of bidding farewell. He may have kept the beat warm to cheer up those who mourn him.

The third is “Last Donut of the Night”. This is the penultimate song on the album, just before the outro. The song has a sorrowful and nostalgic tone. The title even feels deep, as if he was giving his final goodbyes to his listeners as well as the entire music industry. Perhaps the most emotional song on the album, “Last Donut of the Night” was certainly one of the key songs.

All in all, Donuts is a must-listen. It gives the listener a deep dive into Dilla’s samples and beats. A roller coaster of an album, some songs sound exciting and lively while others provoke melancholic feelings. Listeners may never experience an instrumental hip–hop album as complete as Donuts. A timeless classic.