MF DOOM
Amid the colorful cast of characters and personas who have distinguished themselves in rap—from Rammellzee to Kool Keith, Ol’ Dirty Bastard to Busta Rhymes—DOOM shines as another true original. When asked about the best advice he had ever received, he replied, “A wise man once said, ‘Do you.’ I know what he meant, but I didn’t really grasp what he said until maybe a year later. And that was like the wisest statement I heard out of any book or anything I ever read: ‘Do You.’ Be yourself and that’s the best thing you could be. Anytime you try to copy someone you’re not being genuine to yourself.”11 In the same interview he added, “I’m constantly striving for perfection, so what I’m doin’ is constantly elevatin’ and educatin’ myself in a way that, all right, I’m better than I was the previous day. Yunno, so, that could go on forever, there’s really not ever going to be a top, you know? I don’t think I’ll do it in this lifetime.”
The quote is from The Chronicles of DOOM by S. H. Fernando Jr.
Earlier this year, the BBC published a four-part podcast series on MF DOOM. DOOM is often referred to as 'your favourite rapper's favourite rapper', and there's something to that statement.
Two of my favourite DOOM albums are MM..FOOD and Madvillainy. Listen to either of those and you can't go wrong. There's something about the playfulmess (I accidentally wrote the 'm' but I'll let it be because it works) of that album that says a lot on how DOOM used comics, epic stories, souped-up samples, farce humour, and tricky words, not to mention sentence construction. DOOM is a legend in hip-hop and he was a legend while he was alive.
I mean:
DOOM had already arrived at a title for his full-length—Operation: Doomsday—from the best-selling Sidney Sheldon thriller The Doomsday Conspiracy (William Morrow, 1991). Loosely based on the Roswell incident of 1947, the story follows passengers on a bus in Switzerland who witness the crash of a UFO, that authorities claim as a weather balloon. The protagonist of the story, a member of US naval intelligence, stumbles on a plot called Operation Doomsday to keep the witnesses silent and cover up the fact that aliens have been in communication with governments on Earth for a long time. For DOOM, the title played perfectly into the concept for his new persona as he declared his mission to destroy rap.
To destroy rap.
Invent yourself and then reinvent yourself.
That's Charles Bukowski.
I mean:
Inspired by their futuristic beats, DOOM could focus on his writing, stepping up his pen game. “Viktor the director, flip a script like Rob Reiner,” he says on the title track, capping it with the punchline, “The way a lot of dudes rhyme, their name should be knob shiner.”
Yeah:
In the canon of DOOM, Madvillainy, far and away, ranks as his magnum opus—an album that transformed a hungry underground upstart, struggling for a second chance, into a serious contender. As seldom as critical and popular tastes overlap, the stars were definitely aligned for this one, as the overwhelmingly glowing response greeting its March 2004 release suggested. Pitchfork called it “inexhaustibly brilliant,” adding, “Good luck finding a better hip-hop album this year, mainstream, indie, or otherwise.” The Village Voice hailed “an outlandishly imaginative collaboration.” Already divining the future, the site Hip-Hop DX said, “Classic albums generally need some time to marinate and gain that status, but fuck it; they didn’t follow any guidelines so why should I? Classic. Yes, I said it. Classic.” They were even dazzled across the pond. “The wily creativity on display here is astonishing,” marveled Mojo, while Q magazine simply called it “one utterly badass album.”
Bandcamp offer a guide to the MF DOOM discography.
DOOM lives in all of us; we all live in DOOM.