One thing I especially identified with the book Music is History by Questlove was how as he ages the new music wouldn't always hit him right off like it did when he was coming up and hot for EPMD or anything by the Bomb Squad. During his coming of age youth music wheelhouse; 16-24, usually. Eventually the hot new records or New Styles sound, initially, maybe too derivative, or somehow off, maybe disorienting, you're not sure you even like whatever hyped music until, not always but on special occasions, it incandescently gels into something epic and undeniable. J Dilla's Donuts is like that for me. I think I first thought more Neo-Soul DJ retrosheen. Okay, that's fine. The smeary production felt at first like a little bit of a put on; a primitivist affectation. Now it sounds like a break with the literalness of '90s sampling. Abstract shards of scratching playing the melody or punching the mix with dramatic jabs of sound. J Dilla's production style has been hugely influential on acts as different as Canadian rap superstar Drake or British dubstep ambient pioneers Burial. Donuts is a 21st century master DJ cut-up abstraction of Isaac Hayes's 1969 classic album Hot Buttered Soul. It's a Blaxploitation soundtrack of retro-Afrofuturist Black Power, without the politics. Like the perfect vibes music for a backyard party. When I try to name a great hiphop album from this century my go to for awhile now has been Kendrick Lamar's Good Kid, M.A.A.D City (2012). But Donuts has to be up there.
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