Episode 124 - Donuts by J Dilla (Side A)

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Rarely do we go into an episode thinking it’ll be a two parter. It certainly wasn’t the intention with this one. Yet it turns out there’s rather a lot to say about J Dilla. He was a truly gifted producer and musician, who created an incredible amount of music in his short term here on Earth. Donuts was his second (or third) full length album, and was released a mere 3 days before his untimely death at 32 years old from a heart attack. But as a producer and beatmaker, he’d created and contributed to way more than three album’s worth of songs and, as has been demonstrated since his death, composed a lot more tunes alongside.

On this episode we really dig deep into his story, talk about some of the career highlights, cover off a bunch of the things he worked on (not all because frankly, there’s a lot) and give you as much of the story of his life as we can.

People who know a lot about hip hop may be wondering how this man could possibly be unsung, but the fact remains that his influence is still being felt to this day and not a lot people know about this album and his life.

Vote next week!