That’s That: The Legacy of MF DOOM
Hip hop, more than any other genre of music to ever emerge from our culture, was born at the intersection of hardship and celebration. Daniel Dumile was no stranger to the former of the two; his first foray into the world of hip hop (under the name Zev Love X) was as one-third of the rap group KMD alongside his younger brother DJ Subroc, who was tragically killed in a car accident just before the group’s 1993 sophomore album Black Bastards was scheduled to be released. Crushed by both this tragedy and the refusal of his label to put out Black Bastards on account of its controversial cover art, Dumile dropped off the cultural map for half a decade, skirting the edges of poverty and licking his wounds until he was ready to return and exact vengeance upon the industry that had wronged him. As a supervillain origin story, Dumile’s background could go toe-to-toe with any cliché fall into a vat of toxic waste, making it all the more appropriate that his return would see him become both a sinister, mask-wearing antagonist and, within only a few short years, one of the most accomplished and celebrated rappers the genre has ever seen.
In hindsight, it’s astonishing how much of the personality that would come to define MF DOOM was already present on Dumile’s debut under the new name, 1999’s Operation: Doomsday. DOOM’s youthful hunger had yet to be smoothed out into the cynical viciousness that would define his later releases, but his most recognizable features are otherwise all present and accounted for. The sinister metal mask, a backstory that drew thematic and visual parallels to the Marvel villain Doctor Doom, and a plethora of superhero references and samples to tie it all together; DOOM’s infectious charisma and stylish presentation immediately set him apart at a crucial turning point in rap’s tumultuous history. Most importantly, DOOM was already a cut above most of his peers in terms of technical ability, and despite Operation: Doomsday being one of his rougher releases overall, his ear for matching eccentric beats with a blend of lighthearted and thoughtful lyricism was already impressively developed.
“Ever since the womb ‘til I’m back where my brother went/That’s what my tomb will say/Right above my government, Dumile/Either unmarked or engraved, hey, who’s to say?'“
-MF DOOM, Doomsday (1999)
Of course, when people think of MF DOOM and his undeniable brilliance as a rapper, the image that most often comes to mind is his macabre, mask-clad silhouette that adorns the cover of Madvillainy, DOOM’s 2004 collaborative effort with producer Madlib. Widely regarded as one of the greatest hip hop albums ever made, Madvillainy captured two of the genre’s most prolific names at the height of their respective talents, and seemed to bring out the best in each of them. Madlib’s dusty, sample-laden beats sounded completely unlike anything else in hip hop at that time, whether he was reviving and perfecting DOOM's retro, cartoony aesthetic on tracks such as America’s Most Blunted and All Caps or utilizing bizarre instrumental loops to craft experimental masterpieces like Accordion. Every single beat on this album sounds delightfully different from the next, and despite the constant interjection of old-school vocal snippets, the record’s overall composition is air-tight: no choruses, plenty of tracks under two minutes in length, and vibrant transitions that connect the duo’s scattered, idiosyncratic compositions into a thematic whole.
“Tripping off the beat kinda, dripping off the meat grinder/Heat niner, pimping, stripping, soft sweet minor/China was a neat signer, trouble with the script/Digits double dipped, bubble lipped, subtle lisp midget”
-Madvillain, Meat Grinder (2004)
Still, for many hip hop heads the true wonder of Madvillainy is DOOM’s inhuman ability to sound completely comfortable on whatever beat Madlib throws his way, and the intricacy of his performances on the record is a marvel of technique that has still yet to be matched over fifteen years later. DOOM’s ability to weave complex rhyme schemes into verse upon verse upon verse is a masterwork that has to be seen (or heard) to be believed, and simultaneously the villain is lining each track with some of the most quotable bars of that era while drawing careful distinctions between his lyrical themes and those of his contemporaries: “The rest is empty with no brain, but the clever nerd/The best MC with no chain ya ever heard” (Figaro). There’s a reason people often refer to DOOM as “your favourite rapper’s favourite rapper”; not only would one be hard-pressed to find a distinguished modern hip hop artist that wasn’t directly influenced by the work of Daniel Dumile, but the masked MC was a master of his craft in the most technical sense, the kind of rapper whose flows and punchlines only get more and more impressive the deeper one’s appreciation of the artform gets.
“There’s only one beer left/Rappers screaming all in our ears like we’re deaf/Tempt me, do a number on the label/Eat up all they emcees and drink ‘em under the table”
-MF DOOM, One Beer (2004)
Madvillainy came in the midst of a period of unprecedented creativity for DOOM, and the amount of stellar material he dropped in just 2003 and 2004 alone is staggering to look back on. Inside those two years, Dumile released Take Me To Your Leader as King Geedorah, two albums under the Viktor Vaughn alias, multiple beat tapes in his Special Herbs series, and MM..FOOD, the true successor to Operation: Doomsday and a more than worthy continuation of the MF DOOM lineage. A conceptual juggernaut unlike anything to come before it, MM..FOOD saw the masked villain weaving a litany of creative food themes into some of his most thoughtful compositions yet: criticisms of the hip hop community (Beef Rap, Rapp Snitch Knishes), musings on the nature of loyalty and friendship (Deep Fried Friendz), a tribute to his late brother (Kon Karne). Where Madvillainy was dark, ominous, and dominated by DOOM’s murky drawl even in its most frivolous moments, here the rapper’s voices bounces with well-earned confidence; it’s more obvious than ever before that Dumile is having a ton of fun whenever he gets behind the mic, even as he never lets the listener forget that DOOM is a villain first and foremost: “What up? To all rappers: shut up with your shutting up/And keep a shirt on, at least a button-up”.
“Great balls of fire/Guess who just crawled out the muck or mire/That could make you trust a motherfuckin’ liar/A real shuck n’ jiver/Vaughn never been a duck-n-diver/He spit on the mic, yuck, saliva”
-Viktor Vaughn, Saliva (2003)
At a time where the anti-establishment gangsta rap of the ‘90s was ceding the stage to an incoming flood of sanitized, marketable decadence known as the ‘bling era’, DOOM was there to recapture a sense of mystery and larger-than-life grandeur that extended well beyond a face hidden under the mask. Dumile would bounce between personas seemingly at will: MF DOOM, King Geedorah, his youthful alter ego Viktor Vaughn, his producer alias Metal Fingers, and every name given to his team-ups with producers like Madlib (Madvillain) and Danger Mouse (DANGERDOOM). The sense of a larger universe behind otherwise self-contained verses is omnipresent, as is the metal-faced villain’s air of malevolence and mystery that DOOM no doubt relished in. Yet even as darker retellings of superhero stories began to grow in popularity, DOOM’s material maintained a sense of levity and self-deprecation that was always appreciated by fans. One second he might be elevating the arrogance and posturing endemic in hip hop to near-mythical levels, yet the next might have Viktor Vaughn’s girlfriend cheating on him with another of Dumile’s personas (Fancy Clown), while DOOM was off referencing as many brands of cookies as he could in one song (Kookies) or else giving himself the most backhanded of compliments: “He wears a mask just to cover the raw flesh/A rather ugly brother with flows that’s gorgeous”.
“Cornish hens switching positions/Auditioning morticians, saw it in a vision, ignoring prison/Ignoramuses enlist and sound dumb/Found ‘em drowned in cow’s dung, crowns flung”
-MF DOOM, THAT’S THAT (2009)
When a post on MF DOOM’s Instagram in the last moments of 2020 revealed that Daniel Dumile had tragically passed away on October 31 of that year, the entire hip hop community lurched in shock and disbelief. How could the 49-year-old rapper have died at such a young age with no known health problems, and how was this news kept secret from the public for two months? A few days removed from the initial confusion, it honestly feels all too fitting that such a private, enigmatic figure would maintain a sense of mystery and separation even in death. This is not to say Dumile’s passing was in any way treated as part of his metal-faced character, merely that DOOM was a man who understood the need to keep some distance from his audience, and did so even into the 2010s as the advent of social media made parasocial relationships with celebrities an all-too-common trend. MF DOOM was a singular, authentic presence in hip hop, a villain at a point where the genre needed one more than ever before, an impossibly talented rapper that left indelible marks on all those that followed in his footsteps, and undoubtedly one of the greatest artists of our time. Just remember all caps when you spell the man’s name.