Collin Robinson of Stereogum, "it's almost too perfect a metaphor for Dilla's otherworldly ability to flip the utter shit out of anything he sampled". The ending of the final track flows right into the beginning of the first one, forming an infinite loop, and alluding to donuts' circular form. Recording In 2005, J Dilla underwent treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for complications brought on by TTP and a form of lupus. While in the hospital, he worked on two albums: Donuts and The Shining. 29 out of 31 tracks from Donuts were recorded in hospital, using a Boss SP-303 sampler and a Numark PT-01 record player his friends brought him. Records his mother and friends would bring were used as the source of the samples for the album. She recalled it in the Crate Diggers documentary: "When I took the crate up, and he looked through it, I think out of a whole milk crate full of 45s, I think he might have taken a dozen out of there and set them aside. He said 'you can take that back to the house'. He said 'none of that's good'." Throughout the year his condition worsened. His legs swelled, making it difficult to walk. At times his hands swelled so much he could barely move them. If the pain was too intense, his mother would massage his fingertips, so he could continue working on the album. Occasionally he would wake up in the middle of the night and ask his mother to move him from his bed to the instruments. According to Kelley L. Carter of Detroit Free Press, J Dilla told his doctor he was proud of the work, and that all he wanted to do was to finish the album. While working on the album, Dilla didn't allow anyone to listen to the unfinished version and was furious when he found out his mother listened to it while he was in dialysis. Release and promotion Donuts was ready to be released by October 2005, but according to Stones Throw, their distributor, EMI, "didn't think a weird, difficult instrumental album by an underground producer would move the projected 10,000 copies", since Dilla's previous album, Champion Sound, failed to achieve commercial success. Later the label came to an understanding with the distributor and the album was set for release in early February 2006, along with a bonus single "Signs". Donuts was