why i love donuts
When I first came to the Netherlands in the bitterly cold spring of 2006 a CD got sent to our office by mistake. It was called Mindstate by Pete Philly and Perquisite, who according to the press release were a hip hop outfit from Amsterdam. No one had a clue who they were. While we waited for it to be picked up by the rightful owner, we put it on, not really expecting much. It became the soundtrack to the rest of the year.
After I came back to London, I played it to anyone who would listen and everyone loved it. There’s now a Pete and Perq appreciation society in North London, with branches in Nottingham and Ipswich as well. But no-one else in the UK seemed to have heard of them. And that’s just wrong.
It’s not just them either, there’s a whole wealth of talent here which deserves to be heard by the rest of the world. Since I’ve been back in the Netherlands, I’ve been trying to delve further into the Dutch underground, and the fruits of this extensive reseach will appear on this site, so it won’t just be me getting excited about it all.
And why Donuts? This site is a tribute to the genius of the late James Yancey, aka J. Dilla.