(DISCLAIMER: Video examples below may contain explicit content)
RIP MF DOOM
Daniel Dumile died on the 31st of October, 2020 at the age of 49.
Two months later, On the 31st of December his death was announced by his wife Jasmine, sending shockwaves through the hip-hop community.
Throughout his career, Dumile had performed under many different pseudonyms, but was principally known as DOOM or MF DOOM.
For those within the hip hop community the news came as a monumental shock. But for others it may have been their first introduction to DOOM and a particular niche that exists within hip-hop.
This post looks at the unique appeal of DOOM, what it tells us about the appreciation of hip-hop and, as a side note, what we can all learn from DOOM’s uniquely enigmatic approach.
Operation: Doomsday of the debut LP of the same name
The origin of the villain
Born in London in 1971, Dumile and his brother moved to Long Island, New York, forming fraternal rap group KMD.
Tragically, Dumile’s brother and collaborator died from being struck by a car which led to Dumile taking a hiatus from music for some time.
Returning later, Dumile had taken on the DOOM persona, wearing a mask resembling that worn Doctor Doom from Marvel Comics (currently a stop-out in the current MCU cast of villains). This would later be replaced with one that is more reminiscent of that worn by Russell Crowe’s Maximus in the film Gladiator.
DOOM would take on a range of pseudonyms referring to separate characters that Dumile treated as alter egos and characters. These would form the basis of his lyrics and the storytelling within his songs.
The appeal of DOOM’s music was in its peerless craft in several aspects of the hip hop genre, which established him as an incredible technician within the field, albeit one who achieved less commercial success than many of his more widely known peers.
His influence however is undeniable, with many contemporaries citing MF DOOM as a key influence and other contemporary works being clearly influenced by DOOM’s innovations and unique style.
The Unique appeal of DOOM
Hip hop as a constantly evolving genre
Hip hop enthusiasts look for a range of different variables when it comes to the appreciation of the genre.
In many ways the configuration, variation and combination of these attributes is what makes hip-hop so unique and interesting – alongside an aspect which I enjoy in particular – a rapidly shifting discourse and rhetoric and that occurs internally within the genre and as a conversation with the conditions within wider society.
Put simply, hip hop is a genre which is constantly in conversation with itself and the wider world, in various ways. This cannot be said for many other genres that have stagnant and perhaps over-reliant on worn out tropes.
Typically, hip hop music is rooted in the present moment in its sounds, themes and denotive content. This typically drives an economy of ideas which remains interesting and which is constantly evolving.
A hip hop song in 2020 is nearly unrecognisable in comparison to one from 2018 – as these elements shift and change are innovated and presented in endless new forms.
The iconic music within the genre typically carries a flavour of the time within its content. DOOM, however on account of his elusiveness seeks something that was iconic from the outset, and perhaps as a result more resilient to the passing of time. More on this later.
A note on problematic content
For those that have avoided the genre previously because of perceived lyrical content, I would encourage a second look. Although it must be said that many artists, including DOOM, still have problematic material in their catalogues which represent outdated attitudes.
It has however, been encouraging to see these attitudes move forward quickly in the past decade, with a lot of work rightfully seen as a blemish within legacy artists’ discography.
The key critical attributes within hip hop
With that being said, the key attributes of good hip hop are:
- Production – the beat, typically created by a separate producer and often subject to sub-genres and sub-styles
- Lyrics – the content of the rap, what is being said and the story being told, often involving wordplay, jokes, punchlines, entendre in potentially highly complex examples
- Flow – the way that the lyrics sound and the way that they ride the beat, include rhyme schemes, internal rhyme scheme, cadence and other technical elements. This is essentially a blending element that combines production and lyrical content.
This is a very basic overview, but with this broad schema in mind we can review any hip hop song and have a structure to understand it’s good and not so good elements.
Applying the schema: Kanye West
Kanye West is often considered to have some of the most incredible and innovative production of recent times, introducing entirely new palettes of sound into mainstream hip hop (bleeding heart auto-tune on 808s and Heartbreak for example paved the way for Drake and similar) and heavy industrial production on Yeezus brought to the fore more abrasive sounds, hitherto unheard.
In addition, Kanye is considered to have, in his first two albums, created an entirely original sonic palette, typically consisting of sampling and pitch shifting obscure gospel music.
But, his lyrical content typically is his weakest attribute. – often leading to some particularly terrible one-liners which irk.
Overall however, using the above framework we may still consider Kanye West an amazing hip-hop artist despite his core weakness – through appreciation of the other elements.
It is perhaps these unique genre attributes and how they combine which are the unique appeal of the genre which may not initially make sense to the uninitiated.
Again I would encourage you to look at hip hop artists you may have liked previously with the above in mind, and you may be able to derive a deeper enjoyment than previous.
Let Me Watch MF DOOM in his Viktor Vaughn guise rapping on Sound-Ink production, an example of exemplary storytelling
DOOM doesn’t miss
MF DOOM, whether appearing on his own production, or on others’ (including production masters such as J Dilla or Madlib) was a near peerless master of all three of the above elements.
Demonstrative of a masterful ability far beyond many of those that have become synonymous with the genre.
His mastery leads his entire varied discography to become exemplars of what is possible within the genre – in essence, setting the blueprint for its outer limits.
And like many visionary artists and pioneers, he would perhaps not receive the widespread recognition deserving of his ability during his time from the mainstream public, yet his influence within the DNA of the genre cannot be understated.
Let’s look at some specific examples of how these attributes present themselves within his music.
The production
An accomplished producer, MF Doom is regarded as an innovator and his discography includes a host of instrumental albums.
Most notably, whilst producing a range of his own music in the form of instrumentals as well as beats he would rap on himself – DOOM would collaborate with god-tier producers such as Madlib on Madvillainy (his most well-known project), and J Dilla as well as Danger Mouse on Danger Doom.
DOOM’s self produced projects include his debut Operation: Doomsday, Mmm Food, a large part of Born Like This. He would also work as a producer on other artists’ projects, including Ghostface Killah’s Fishscale, Masta Ace’s MA Doom: Son of Yvonne ,as well as music for up and coming NY artists, Joey Bada$$, Capital Steez and Bishop Nehru.
Collaborative projects, such as the above, would give DOOM a variety of sonic playgrounds to exercise his lyrical abilities in – providing his listeners with a diverse range of production to enjoy his wordplay over. This would also shape new approaches DOOM would take to his lyrical content.
That’s That from Born Like This produced and featuring MF DOOM.
The lyrics
Whilst MF DOOM is celebrated by his fans and audience for having mastery over all three attributes – he is perhaps most praised for the seemingly effortless level of storytelling and intellect contained within his music.
His verses are often dense and contain a large quantity of lyrical content to attempt to comprehend at speed. But even when familiarity sets in, and reading along too the lyric sheet, listeners find a rich vein of wordplay, humour and meaning hidden in the pacy delivery.
I would invite the reader to pick a song and follow along with the lyrics on Genius.com, looking at the notes that are provided by the fan base to get a grasp of this.
However, the video below establishes a glimpse of how this is achieved in music reviewer Anthony Fantano’s favourite 5 DOOM verses.
Crucially, there was an extra layer to this, as DOOM would be writing form the perspective of a character more so than that of himself – and as such would use lyrical content to build up the mythology around his fictionalised character. More on this in the final section.
Anthony Fantano presents his top 5 DOOM verses. Of particular interest is the note he makes that there is seemingly only one instance where he talks about himself as Daniel Dumile, rather than the character of DOOM.
The flow
Flow as it is manifest in hip-hop music is often something that people do to think about explicitly. It is an essence of good lyrical delivery that connects the word to the music, to pleasant effect.
Rappers with good flow just sound good (e.g. Freddie Gibbs), but we often find it a bit difficult to explain why despite finding ourselves nodding out heads.
MF DOOM’s flow is exemplary and very complex in how it seeks to ride the beat using cadences, end rhymes and internal rhyme schemes.
Considering the complexity of the lyrical content and often eclectic beats he is rapping on, this is a masterful feat.
This video explainer from Vox explains how flow works, from the origins of hip-hop where flow was much more simple and less developed, to the present day where contemporaries of MF DOOM are continuing to pioneer the skill in their writing.
For those not looking to go in depth here, please look at the video that follows second, which presents a visual breakdown of MF DOOM’s That’s That which you may have listened as presented above.
Vox: Rapping, deconstructed: The best rhymes of all time. This also includes examples from MF DOOM, at the beginning and end.
Spited: MF DOOM – That’s That. – Lyrics, Rhymes Highlighted
From a technical perspective, you can see how the flow propels the song forward with momentum and perhaps how a switch in rhyme scheme often moves the subject matter of the story forward too.
…
The culmination of these three elements in DOOM’s music present fans of the genre with an inexhaustible well of the best the genre has to offer.
Simply put, for hip hop enthusiasts, you cannot get tired of DOOM, and his music is instructive in presenting what possibilities the genre holds.
But this is not the only way in which DOOM is exemplary…
Something more (or less)
What ties all of these elements together is the unique “package” which hinged around DOOM’s unique presentation.
From the point of his reemergence, DOOM crafted an enigmatic persona that built on the mystique of the comic book character Doctor Doom, this allowed Dumile to separate himself from the music, something that was later revealed to be a deliberate choice:
“It’s really just another character. Zen Love X [DOOM’s first pseudonym] was a character too, most people think that’s me but he wasn’t. They’ve all been characters. The DOOM thing is to be able to come at things with a different point of view. I decided the mask would just add to the mystique of the character as well as make DOOM stand out. I thought it’d be an easy way for people to see and differentiate between characters, sorta like when an actor gains wait for a role. Throwing on a mask was just a good way to switch it up.” – MF DOOM
This was critical insofar as the character that he created was something that he viewed as entirely separate from himself as an individual.
This lends DOOM’s music something unique in terms that it functions as a timeless fiction, rather than one which is tethered to the zeitgeist in which he operated. At least when relatively compared to the work released by others during a similar time.
Notably, DOOM would play up to his character, engaging in Andy Kaufman-esque tricks and ruses around his character, such as sending doppelgängers to perform in his absence too paying audiences – who would not know whether the man on stage was indeed their idol.
He was criticised for this, but in his comments suggests that this lent further to the fiction of his creation.
“I’m a director as well as a writer… I choose different characters, I choose their direction and where I want to put them. So who I choose to as the character is up to me. The character that I hired, he got paid for it. There’s no imposter.” – MF DOOM
The careful development of the enigma around DOOM not only lent him freedom to create more imaginative and rich fictions in his music – but moreover created an icon which would become bigger than the man himself.
DOOM as an icon will likely endure in its elusiveness for decades to come, with those seeking to put together the mystery finding an incredible body of work to examine and explore.
What we can take away from the villain
Aside from the knowledge that, as above, his music is a endless source of reference about what can be achieved within hip-hop – DOOM’s unique capabilities and appeal provides a range of useful insights for the individual, the creative, or the business – in terms of how to seek to move as a masterful operator.
The key attributes to DOOM, as an operator within the hip-hop marketplace were as follows:
- Peerless technician
- Enigmatic
- Creation of an alter-ego
- Development of a fictional “pocket universe” as opposed to operating in relevance to the real world which is fleshed out in his work
- Collaborator and mentor of younger talent
- Regional (typically supporting and developing within the NY scene)
- Laid-back, non-conforming to normative expectations within the genre (e.g. of the masculine 90s rap personality)
- Elusive or absent – not eminently available
- Use of iconography (the mask)
As a parting note to this piece, the latter point I think is perhaps the most thought-provoking aspect.
Whilst Daniel Dumile tragically died on the 30th of October 2020, DOOM as I (and other hip-hop fans) *always* came to experience him existed as a consequence of his iconography and musical output.
Crucially, all of this continues to exist and continues to influence the genre and music more widely.
Whereas other artists become icons (in the semiotic sense) by the process of simply becoming so famous that their images and expressions live on beyond them in life.
MF DOOM seemed to have set out to achieve this from the first instance he put on the mask.
Lice – Ask Anyone, a tribute to MF DOOM by Aesop Rock and Homeboy Sandman
// Dr. Martin Douglas Hendry // Communications Insight 
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