>shit. "Stop" for example. I mean, did he have access to master
>tapes?

is there something in particular in stop that makes you think this? after hearing the aretha track i realised, or so i thought, that it was a fairly simple chopping of various bits of the song and arranging them together. i was actually surprised at the simplicity of it, after hearing orig. not to take away from the track, he took the key elements out and sequenced them perfectly to condense the emotional resonance of the song, to me anyway. but maybe i'm missing something?

as far as the madlib comparison, it seems to be a common opinion on here, but i can only see it to a point. to me donuts seems more serious and lacks the quirkiness of madlib. sure maybe there's an influence evident there, but to me the key elements that make donuts what it is, and that make it unique, are as follows:

tempo variations, the idea of taking loads of snippets from all over a track and arranging them together intricately, which gives each track a much more organic, moving and flowing feel than a simple loop could ever have, and the use of just samples from a single track, no layering of different sounds from different sources, but rather creating a collage from different pieces of one source.

to me this is what makes the album what it is, and what marks the genius of the vision behind it. he sort of took the hiphop blueprint and completely flipped and redefined it yet without actually deviating from it, if that makes sense.