J Dilla’s art of sampling

A sample can send you back to a recording you’ve never heard. In J Dilla’s hands, it can also make something familiar feel completely new.

Donuts is a good place to hear that happen. Released by Stones Throw on 7 February 2006, it fits 31 short pieces into a little over forty minutes. Voices, guitars, drums, and tiny fragments of other records keep taking on new roles.

Start with the source

Play “The Worst Band in the World” by 10cc, then follow it with Dilla’s “Workinonit”. The source recording gives you one setting for those sounds. Dilla’s cuts and repetitions make another.

Listen for the moment a voice stops feeling like a complete line and starts behaving like part of the rhythm. You don’t need a sampler to hear the choices being made.

Hear a song change shape

Now try the Escorts’ “I Can’t Stand to See You Cry”, followed by “Don’t Cry”. The first gives you time to settle into the performance. In Dilla’s version, pieces of it arrive in a new order and at a different pace.

Going back and forth makes the transformation easier to hear. Once you’ve found a fragment in the original, listen for how often it returns, where it gets cut off, and what sits beside it.

Keep following the records

Finding a sample is the beginning of another listening session. Go back to the source album, try another song by the artist, then return to Donuts with a little more of its musical world in your ears.

Explore the Sampling Donuts visual guide, watch Tracklib’s breakdown of “Don’t Cry”, and read Stones Throw’s album notes.

Album artwork: J Dilla / Stones Throw Records.