Donuts - J Dilla (2006)

Dilla was a producer extraordinaire who was facing down an untimely death in 2006. While he was in the hospital, he loaded his sampler up with some of his favorite records, and just did his thing with them.

The result is Donuts, an incredibly interesting collection of short instrumentals that never stops growing on you.

He’s famous for taking the drumpad sampler–usually used to create a mechanical-sounding robo-beat–and making it fluid and human. He had a really odd sense of rhythm and an incredible skill at getting the sound he wanted both into and out of his equipment. If you’ve got another ten minutes, Vox has a great piece on how innovative and complex Dilla’s beats could be

I didn’t really know what else to tag this as besides hip hop, but it does Dilla a massive disservice. Most of the pop, downtempo, and nu-jazz music you hear today is built on these mechanical-but-humanized beats that he pioneered, both in the way producers program samples and even in how modern drummers drum live.