Greenroom Magazine (Issue #02 / Spring '14) | страница 10

002 | Dilla’s Delights

“I had no clue that this kid throughout his adulthood
still adored donuts. He called his beats donuts, his
women donuts, and everything was donuts. I had no
clue.”

the auto industry, urban gardens, recycling and bike
lanes are beginning to emerge in Detroit.
“It started with the urban gardens or yuppies
and [the] middle class moving back to

Hayes continues, “Right before [Dilla]
he died actually, I found out he was
making Donuts, and I was honored
and amazed. [With “Dilla’s Delights”]
finally, his mom and daughters can
benefit from his genius.”
‘Dilla’s Delights’ is dedicated to Dilla’s
two daughters, Ja’Mya and Ty-Monae,
and is essentially what Dilla would
have wanted his own donut shop
to be — full of soul, creativity and
high quality ingredients. The shop
is located in the building that Dilla
grew up in and where his parents
once owned a restaurant called Lunar
Café. In the shop, the walls will display
metal numbers reading 412 and 413,
the placards from the apartments that Dilla lived
in. Dilla’s Delights, is also a few blocks away from
Harmonie Park, where Dilla had his first DJ set ever
at the age of six, with a Fisher Price-brand turntable.
Spinning every day in the shop will be Dilla’s records
and the records of artists he sampled throughout his
career.
Hayes served as a baker and chef in the military,
and returned to Detroit in 1997. He sought out a job
with the then just opening Avalon Bakery, where he
learned to bake organic artisan bread. Since then
Avalon has grown into a staple in Detroit and has
subsisted as a business that is both communitysupportive and environmentally-minded, sporting
the motto “Eat Well, Do Good,” and meaning it.
Business has gotten so good for Avalon that
they recently purchased a 50,000 square foot
warehouse as a new baking facility. Hayes hints that
the Avalon owners want him to open up his own shop
at the new headquarters.
With Dilla’s Delights, Hayes hopes to build on that
same commitment to sustainability, which speaks
to the new green-revitalization efforts that Detroit
is currently experiencing. It’s a movement that
Hayes credits his former employer, Avalon,
for starting. In the wake of urban decay and
massive population loss due to the collapse of

groundbreaking hip hop albums. That’s dried organic
cranberries, orange dust and cinnamon. We have a
‘McNasty Macaroon’ coming out which is naturally
one of [Dilla’s] aliases. We have a ‘Coney Island
Glaze’ which has an identity that I’m going
to shock people with. It’s a plain
glazed donut, but not a plain glazed
donut,” says Hayes.
Along with tributes to his nephew,
Herm plans on incorporating
other cultural landmarks from the
community that he sees worthy
of preservation. “Detroit has a
long-standing African American
community called the Black
Bottom, so there’s a ‘Black Bottom
Beat Street Blueberry.” We infuse
hip hop with the community. It’s
important to have things named
after our city. We have an ‘Eastside
Éclair’ — an Éclair that has great
fillings. We’re doing a
Keylime, but we call it
a Delime and you have
to say it like you’re from
the island so it’s called a
“Delime Nut.” Hayes has
also been experimenting
with savory pastries,
which he hopes to
introduce once the shop
is up and running. “It’s
something that I’m going
to take pride in, pleasing
palates,” he says.

He called his
beats donuts, his
women donuts,
and everything
was donuts.

Detroit, and it got
contagious
where
the urbanites started
appreciating it and
started
living
that
lifestyle,” Hayes says.
“You see neighborhood
gardens
everywhere.
There are a lot of vegans
here and people riding
bikes. We are drawing
bike lanes all over Detroit
now which is basically
unheard of in my lifetime.” Hayes plans on
using his own bike as Dilla’s Delight’s first
“delivery vehicle.”
Hoping to practice what he preaches and following
suit with the city in its attempts to go Green, Hayes
is incorporating that health-conscious idea into
his shop’s business model. His aim is to make the
healthiest donut possible with no cancer causing
agents. Everything in the shop will be “earth friendly”
as well, from the cups and bags to the coffee stirrers.

The donuts themselves will be named with Dilla
in mind. Hayes says, “So far, people are liking
the ‘Fantastic Fritte