DOOM often sent friends out onstage under his mask to lip-sync to his rhymes. I like to design my stuff, and I consider myself an author.” A shrouded face leant itself to mirth. “I’m more like a writer dude rather than a freestyler,” he told The Chicago Tribute in 2004. His work on these projects was as director. But he also had Zev Love X (his persona in his first group, KMD, with younger brother DJ Subroc) and the aliases King Geedorah, Viktor Vaughn and Madvillain. “Off pride, tykes, talk wide through scar-meat / Off sides, like how Worf ride with Star-Fleet” went ‘Figaro’ from 2004’s ‘Madvillany’. These were messy canvases strewn with concepts pilfered from pop culture – especially the geekier end. His records were melting pots of crate raiding kitsch – samples from Scooby-Doo cartoons, horror movies, Godzilla films. And yet genius doesn’t come from merely ticking boxes. His run of four classic albums in two years (2003’s ‘Take Me To Your Leader’ and ‘Vaudeville Villain’ and 2004’s ‘Venomous Villain’ and ‘Mm…Food’) is one of rap’s greatest achievements. Few who have picked up a microphone have had the confidence of flow or the flair for wordplay that Dumile exhibited. Even within such an onslaught, like the kick to the gut that punctuates the end of a mugging, the death of the rap genius hurt like a deep, uncauterised wound.įlawless technique was a given, his voice – smoky, from the recesses of the throat, inherently cool – as unique as any of the greats to come before or after. This most wretched run of 12 months – one where illness and suffering reigned supreme – had taken many lives up to this point household names, millions more anonymous, lost to a virus that ran roughshod. After a year that took so much, finally came Doomsday. 49 is no age to go, but he leaves behind a cosmos of creativity.ĭumile’s demise, announced on Instagram yesterday by his wife Jasmine, felt like 2020’s final insult. Dumile may no longer walk the Earth, but it’s unfeasible that his art and his ideas will ever leave it. Born Daniel Dumile on January 9th in London, 1971, later of Long Island, New York, masked rapper MF DOOM styled his hip-hop persona on Marvel Comics’ big bad Doctor Victor Von Doom. In any case, the album is still a whole lot of fun, and shouldn't disappoint fans of either act.Never has the passing of a supervillain elicited more sorrow. Skits like "Close Talker" draw out a conflict between Czarface and Doom, but the former seems to be a bit more aggressive - Doom doesn't really seem to fight back, he's just doing his thing, talking sharp and candid like always. Perhaps the most sinister track is "Phantom," which begins with a glitchy, Dabrye-esque beat and a calmly paced guest verse from Open Mike Eagle, before switching to a darker, more noir-ish second half. This is most readily apparent on tracks like "Captain Crunch" (later reprised as "Captain Brunch"), which is loaded with pop culture namedrops ranging from Dave Brubeck to Boba Fett, and "Don't Spoil It," a brief mash note to hip-hop's golden age. Instead of being an epic battle, however, the album ends up feeling more like a casual, relaxed get-together between several life-long fanatics of both hip-hop and comics. Three years after Doom's brief cameo on Czarface's Every Hero Needs a Villain, the iron-masked villain confronts the savior for a full-length go-round. This concept isn't far off from the territory that MF Doom has been covering since the late '90s, so perhaps it was inevitable that the two parties would clash at some point. The project's namesake character, Czarface, is a superhero on a mission to save hip-hop, illustrated in Marvel-style graphics by New York-based artist Lamour Supreme. Since 2013, Boston rap duo 7L & Esoteric and Wu-Tang Clan member Inspectah Deck have been making explosive, action-packed albums inspired by comics and Saturday morning cartoons, loaded with sinister sound bites and funky, cinematic production.
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