-Zilla Rocca “Last Dance of the Night” (“Last Donut of the Night” Freestyle)
I remember first buying Donuts and not really getting the weirdness to the first half of the album the first few months I had it. But when I heard “Last Donut of the Night,” it gave me a permanent screwface. The drums aren’t even prominent on this beat and it made me roll. It was cinematic and saucy at the same time. I remember thinking how the vibe of the beat felt like a sweaty strip club where black chicks would be grinding slow and smoking blunts. Thankfully, I had been to a strip club just like that hahaha! It was called Nite on Broad (RIP), so I just wrote some left field shit about my experience at the place. From that point on, I noticed that Dilla made beats that I wrote to the fastest.
Zilla Rocca is co-founder of Beat Garden Entertainment, blogs at Clap Cowards, is one half of Clean Guns along with Nico the Beast, and one half of 5 O’Clock Shadowboxers, with another (soon-to-be) Donuts Month contributor Douglas Martin.
Backstage. A scant few minutes before showtime. I’m a ball of nerves. My eyes are squinting, my hands are clammy, and sweat is streaming down my face, which is as white as a ghost (or, as white as a black person’s skin can get). I take a quick peep at the stage, where a spotlight is cast over my acoustic guitar. Then, I take a look at the floor. Bad idea: It’s fucking PACKED. People, most with drinks in their hands, are conversing with their friends. Some are adjusting the settings on their cameras. Kids are leaning against the stage, waiting for me to step onstage, grab my guitar, and start beating the shit out of it, as is my way. Me? I’m standing by the door, feeling like I’m going to spew projectile vomit on everything within five feet of me. I take my bandana out of my back pocket and wipe my brow with it, nervously sipping from a bottle of lukewarm water, which– needless to say, due to my nerves– tastes colder than the ice cubes in my Jack and Coke that I obtained through a drink ticket during the opening act’s set. Sometimes, I hate playing in front of other human beings.The lights lower, and strobe lights start flickering. The looped guitar of “Last Donut of the Night” gives me the combination of amped-up confidence and nervous jitters. The strobe lights stop, and swinging lights are cast all over the stage. Everyone knows what time it is, so they’re clapping along with the tambourine. After the last scratch of “ladies and gentlemen,” I confidently hop onto the stairs that lead to the stage. That’s my cue. The spotlight follows me all the way to center stage, where I wipe my forehead with the bandana in one hand, and hold my water bottle with the other. I receive the most rapturous applause I’ve ever gotten in my life, and politely wave, rag in hand, to the crowd and their overwhelming response.
One of the most inspiring things about music is that it sometimes provokes daydreams.
-Douglas Martin
Dilla abstractly hypes himself at the beginning of “Last Donut of the Night” and then, the rest of the track’s the “performance” in a way, but Dilla’s version of performing is emotive soul-loops and the show-off shit is stuff like that odd drum that’s a solid snap and a not-so-confident tambourine struck at the same moment or these backwards-sounding joyous drones more appropriate for “The Factory”.And that extra squeaky, extra broken voice that rises out of the cloud of guitar twang and wandering strings as that Dilla drum clomps along to whatever rhythm it wants, yelps “I give to you…and give to you”. It’s a sad, desperate cry of devoted love–that second “and give to you” almost victimizing the giving–is Dilla quietly but bragging about all the music he’s given fans and rappers and well, the world.
A lot of musicians feel like music–and through that, their music–can heal or make the world a little better, namely because other people’s music did that for them, and “Last Donut of the Night” is Dilla just checking-in one last time to be like “Hey, I really work on this stuff, it’s really important. I hope you like it.”
With Donuts, he sat down to work on one final project that he wanted to be the sort of apotheosis of his career–or where he was in his career at this point, which due to shit out of his hands, would be the final phase–and be something that everybody out there could keep coming back to and unraveling and thinking about. That really is giving; that’s a gift. And while that might sound obnoxious, Dilla totally hangs onto his ego because all this shit’s kinda understated and when it isn’t understated, it’s so fucking loud and clear that it just hits you in the gut and feels honest, too-honest, even and so you feel like he’s sharing something very real with you–and he is.
Are You A Serious Comic Book Reader?
There was this guy who believed very much in true love and ddieced to take his time to wait for his right girl to appear. He believed that there would definitely be someone special out there for him, but none came.Every year at Christmas, his ex-girlfriend would return from Vancouver to look him up. He was aware that she still held some hope of re-kindling the past romance with him. He did not wish to mislead her in any way. So he would always get one of his girl friends to pose as his steady whenever she came back. That went on for several years and each year, the guy would get a different girl to pose as his romantic interest. So whenever the ex-girlfriend came to visit him, she would be led into believing that it was all over between her and the guy. The girl took all those rather well, often trying to casually tease him about his different girlfriends, or so, as it seemed! In fact, the girl often wept in secret whenever she saw him with another girl, but she was too proud to admit it. Still, every Christmas, she returned, hoping to re-kindle some form of romance. But each time, she returned to Vancouver feeling disappointed.Finally she ddieced that she could not play that game any longer. Therefore, she confronted him and professed that after all those years, he was still the only man that she had ever loved. Although the guy knew of her feelings for him, he was still taken back and have never expected her to react that way. He always thought that she would slowly forget about him over time and come to terms that it was all over between them. Although he was touched by her undying love for him and wanted so much to accept her again, he remembered why he rejected her in the first place-she was not the one he wanted. So he hardened his heart and turned her down cruelly. Since then, three years have passed and the girl never return anymore. They never even wrote to each other. The guy went on with his life….. still searching for the one but somehow deep inside him, he missed the girl.On the Christmas of 1995, he went to his friend’s party alone. “Hey, how come all alone this year? Where are all your girlfriends? What happened to that Vancouver babe who joins you every Christmas?”, asked one of his friend. He felt warm and comforted by his friend’s queries about her, still he just surged on.Then, he came upon one of his many girlfriends whom he once requested to pose as his steady. He wanted so much to ignore her ….. not that he was impolite, but because at that moment, he just didn’t feel comfortable with those girlfriends anymore. It was almost like he was being judged by them. The girl saw him and shouted across the floor for him. Unable to avoid her, he went up to acknowledge her.”Hi……how are you? Enjoying the party?” the girl asked.”Sure…..yeah!”, he replied.She was slightly tipsy….. must be from the whiskey on her hand.
Yarizeth
4 May 14 at 7:43 pm