4B — Thursday, February 16, 2017
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Donuts is a perfect project to play while chilling with friends, getting baked or buzzed,
or even just being bored — a true triple threat. The hour-long beat-tape is jumpy, crowded and exciting
enough to entertain even the most short-tempered or musically disinterested of your friends, especially if
you’re chatting
with them and chilling in the living room while listening to it. Especially if
you’re
eating donuts.
Why aren’t I eating any donuts right now? Damn, who forgot
to bring donuts to the Donuts-listening session? Some
writers we are.
Anyways, within each tiny “donut,” Detroit’s own
beat-making guru, Jay Dee a.k.a. J. Dilla, constructs
vivid, complicated vibes that are each uniquely
different from their predecessors. With each
beat switch, he swings the mood from calm
to chaotic, energetic to easing, often seeming
like a conductor who is in control of infinite
orchestras, capable of creating within any and
every soundscape.
One minute you’re listening to “Times,”
imagining yourself strolling coolly down the
sidewalk on perfectly sun-kissed day and
desperately trying to forget the time Drake rapped
over it; then the next you’re tossed into the rowdy
tornado of sound that is “Glazed.” Such is the magic of
Dilla; such is the magic of Donuts.
But it’s the ineffably, impeccably thick textures of every
track, the way that even their background’s background
grooves shake your speakers and rattle your perception of taste,
that give the project its cohesiveness: No other producer is able to
achieve Dilla’s signature bang. No other producer ever will learn to.
— Salvatore DiGioia
J Dilla’s ‘Donuts’
in this series, three daily arts writers in varying states
of mind do the same activity and write about it.
Baked and buzzed are debating who should be baked and who should be buzzed. Great points being
made around the board.
But Dilla is staying constant for sure. It’s strange that music has been compared to actual
physical donuts tonight (as the now determined buzzed said), and I’m having a hard
time reaching baked and buzzed’s mental realm. Doesn’t sound completely
right that music can actually be eaten. Not totally sure about that one.
I always forget how jumpy dilla’s music is until a high pitched
woman just pops out of nowhere and then disappears. Also
kinda crazy they’re releasing like the 15th dilla tape.
Do we have a limit for greed? Can we stop try-
ing to hologram dead people for festival
profit? Can we stop trying to hologram in
general?
As an important side note the fire alarm went off for
a solid 5 minutes and it brought me too close back to those
traumatizing elementary school fire alarm drills. Thank god
my house isn’t up to code and the alarms don’t work even when they
should. I’d rather die.
In summary, I can never figure out when one song starts and the next ends, but
I’m into it either way.
Oh fuck. Plot twist. I am baked. It was me arguing about buzzed and baked. Dammit. I
screwed this up.
— Daily Arts Writer
“i’m definitely high but like I’m always high”
Lmao
fam you know Dilla was really the GOAT when you start
hallucinating that you’re in a fuckin 50s chicago jazz bar for like 4
minutes straight. purely on the virtue of how fucking happy this
record makes me it’s a deffo top 5 record of all time honestly, fuck
me. we all just started pegging current rappers who would kill
different songs on the record and it gave me a proper fuckin idea of
how timeless this man’s beats were. maybe it’s bc I’m plastered but
his beats been pluckin my heartstrings for a hot sec boi o boi
i just slammed a fucking cheesesteak and sack of fries and now
I think I’m dying. where tha Beano at thooooOoOoooOoOOoo. oh
lmao the fire alarm went off holla
so honestly this experience is mad eye-opening to the ingenuity
this legend produced. considering i’m too hammered to focus
on too much shit at once, i straight been only focusing on the
music and lemme tell ya this fucker was the motor city mahler,
fuuuuuuck me.
i still need this beano,boys
what’s mind blowing is that this is purely a beat tape and it’s
one of the most MINdblowing compositions ive listened to in my
life, deadasssssssssss. like i’d want kids only if to lecture the little
pricks on the masterpieces i listened to at their age.
one of these cacs just started spitting his own bars over these
beats. life can’t get any better than this shit wow
folks,,,, donuts by j dilla is extremely good as hek
— Daily Arts Writer
CAMILO JOSÉ VERGARA
Examples of Vergara’s extensive portfolio
Vergara finds ruins of
modern-day Detroit
Chilean photographer captures the remains and
deurbanization of Detroit inner-city and suburbs
“I
have
always
been
interested in the things that
fail,”
said
photographer
Camilo José Vergara.
With a keen eye for
spaces and an obsession
for photographing cities,
Vergara displays rawness
and realism about Detroit in
his visual book “Detroit is
No Dry Bones: The Eternal
City of the Industrial Age.”
No, it wouldn’t make
much
sense
to
classify
Detroit as a “failed” city
— a space that is absorbed
in urban art, culture and
drive, Detroit is to be
placed in its own category.
But in retrospect, Detroit’s
urban
structures
and
city
population
have
significantly
decreased
within the past 50 years,
and Vergara has been able to
exemplify this declination
through his photos.
The
Chilean-born
photographer began taking
photos at a young age,
and studied sociology at
Notre Dame and Columbia
University.
The
artist
claimed that he “did not
have large ghettos” where
he lived, and that is what
drew him to the rougher
parts of Camden, Chicago,
New York and Detroit.
Vergara discussed how
he would hear rumors and
stories where things “could
not get worse.” As someone
who
was
always
been
interested in neighborhood
and
towns,
and
by
continuously revisiting the
Detroit, Vergara was eager
to find what the next steps
were for the city.
What
makes
Vergara
unique
among
many
is
his concept of revisiting
the same locations over
and over again over a long
period of time.
His book begins with an
introduction
discussing
his passions and reasons
for
photography,
and
specifically, photographing
the Motor City. Then, the
very first two pages after
the intro, the reader sees
two drastically different
photos taken from the exact
same vantage point (“south
from the roof of the former
Carlton Plaza Hotel”).
One of these photos,
flourished
with
color,
business and community,
was taken in 1998; the
second,
showing
the
same
places,
bleak
and
abandoned, was taken in
2003. Below is a photo
featured in the book, taken
from
a
similar
vantage
point to the two photos
from the intro, but this one
was taken in 1991.
Even
in
those
five
years, Vergara understood
that
spaces
are
“used
for different people and
purposes,” including old
warehouses, vacant houses
and over-vegetated streets
and walkways.
“There
are
a
lot
of
stories that are completely
un-protectable,”
Vergara
emphasized
when
describing
these
photographs.
The
story
of
a
building
changes
as
its
function
does:
Warehouses once meant for
manufacturing car parts
are now used as a space for
adolescent paintball fights.
More
of
these
hidden
stories were explored when
Vergara hit the suburbs.
Dichotomic and heavy,
Vergara
showed
me
a
photo of two neighboring
suburban houses. Although
feet apart from one another,
they look as though they are
from two different worlds.
Vergara
mentioned
the extent to which the
abandoned house on the
left is disheveled, where all
that is left is a wide-open
back yard, pest infestation,
broken
windows
and
a
trashcan.
Meanwhile,
the viewer sees the house
directly to the right, a well-
kept and tidy space clearly
occupied by humans.
“I became sensitive to
the small things,” Vergara
said. This among many of
his photos clearly focuses
on
the
urban-decay
of
the city and the suburbs.
“Sometimes the neighbor
will clean up the front yard
… If your neighbor looks
bad, you look bad.”
In the idea of abandoned
houses,
another
one
of
Vergara’s triptychs shows
the
house
titled
“The
Edmund,” which was built
in 1885.
With the overgrowing
bushes
and
shattered
roof,
the
house
almost
looks apocalyptic. Vergara
mentioned
the
paradox
between
the
Detroit
houses
that
are
vacant
and the houses that are
still being lived in, both
“giving the feeling that
they are in battle, fighting
for
survival.”Both
when
observing these locations
in
person
and
through
his photos, Vergara said
that people tend to ask:
“How did this happen?” A
question looming in the air,
it is ineffable to say what is
the cause for these parts of
cities like Detroit to fall out
of existence.
“People in the future, I
believe, will want to know
about
the
evolution
of
postindustrial Detroit in
terms of the visual forms
of everyday life,” Vergara
wrote in the introduction
of his book. “But there are
disincentives to probing this
subject. Scholars interested
in Detroit and other cities
undergoing
depopulation,
disinvestment,
and
dereliction are eager to
find ways to return them
to prosperity — usually,
however, at the cost of
ignoring
the
physical
adaptations
and
new
beginnings made by locals
in their struggle to survive.”
He captures more than
just bird’s-eye views of
cities and eerie abandoned
house
photos.
He
incorporates
sculptures,
landmarks,
objects
and
most
importantly,
the
people of Detroit.
What Vergara possesses
which
is
even
more
insightful than his photos
are his precious stories and
his patient perseverance to
reveal to the world the odd
and beautiful truth that is
Detroit.
ERIKA SHEVCHEK
Daily Community Culture Editor
The reader sees
two drastically
different photos
taken from the
exact same
vantage point
MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW
Chance the Rapper’s
most recent video, “Same Drugs,”
is a let down. Given the expecta-
tions Chance has set for himself
with his critically acclaimed album,
Coloring Book, his powerful per-
formance on SNL last winter and a
slew of other noteworthy creative
endeavors, the video is a let down.
Not only does the “Same Drugs”
video not live up to Chance’s track
record — it fails the complexity
and quality of the original. The
CDQ track of “Same Drugs” moves
smoothly between wanting and
uplifting. Chance sings of love lost
and a childhood left behind, before
ending with a positive look at the
future.
The video mimics some-
thing like a 1980s children’s TV
variety show: the type one might
see on “Sesame Street” or any other
PBS program, where Chance plays
piano next to a goofy looking mup-
pet in a jazzercise get up. As he
croons the first verse, the muppet
lays slumped on his shoulder.
Aesthetically, the first
two thirds is a strange mix of con-
temporary minimalism and 1980s
maximalism. The shots are simple,
but everything is soaked in a pink
tint, and both Chance and the Mup-
pet have loud outfits on. It’s more of
a headache than it is nostalgic.
And the first verse drags.
It’s mostly Chance singing and sup-
porting a passed out muppet. The
moment of climax and excitement,
when the muppet wakes up for
the chorus, might have been more
exciting if it wasn’t entirely pre-
dictable. In any case, the muppet
wakes up and adds her own set of
vocals, jarring in comparison to the
smooth croon of the album version.
There is one last twist;
towards the end of the video,
Chance leaves the set of the faux
variety show to reveal everyone
working the set is also a muppet.
The retro tint disappears and
Chance walks off the set as the song
plays out.
The message here is
kinda fun, albeit a bit obvious.
Muppets pretending to be humans
are equal parts nodding to a child-
ish surrealism and a drug addled
reality. Coloring book is an album
drenched with a heartwarming
nostalgia for simpler times. The-
matically, the video lines up with
the album’s overarching theme.
So Chance gets some
points for trying. The video’s not
cliché or derivative, or lacking from
any artistic vision. It’s just, unfortu-
nately, pretty boring.for.
— Harry Krinsky
‘Same Drugs’
Chance the Rapper
Self-released
ARTIST PROFILE