10. J DillaDonuts
My friend Jono Ma (Jagwar Ma) really pointed me in Dilla’s direction a few years back. This record has made an enormous impact on the way I make and also listen to music; it’s unquantifiable really. It’s incredibly haunting and still jubilant. It’s the love of music on a record, a reimagining of the past in a way that is deeply personal and completely recognisable. It’s a fucking triumph. The timbre of the samples through his minimal gear, all shifty and raw, make the whole record sound like a dream, like you’ve been there before, heard it a million times and still feels completely new. The last record before an artist’s death is always going to be canonised, but I think this is the most inspired work he ever made as a producer. He completely changed the game – it’s so glaringly obvious when someone’s ripping Dilla these days. He took music that he loved and exalted it, transformed it, put it through the filter of his soul and made it new and remarkable.
