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