Samples both luscious and unconventional are looped with uncomplicated precision, be it the yearning Isaac Hayes strings on highlight ‘Dead Bent’ or the hacked Scooby Doo subversion on ‘Hey!’. Debut album Operation: Doomsday, released in 1999, introduced listeners to a seemingly fully realised alternate reality. An amalgamation of his surname, masked Marvel Comics villain Doctor Doom and the aforementioned rejection of industry norms smelted into a vessel for fantastical storytelling. On returning from his self-imposed sabbatical in the late nineties, Dumile had constructed the character of MF DOOM, his most enduring guise, and the name for which he became synonymous. KMD’s Black Bastards (recorded 1993, released 2001) This combination of tragic familial loss and backhanded industry interference forced Dumile to retreat from the industry for several years. This is not to downplay the groups more radical edge, which is clear on their final album Black Bastards, which was left shelved for years, allegedly due to label concerns over its overtly racial topics and controversial album cover. The pair had performed together in the group KMD, an early nineties New York hip hop crew not dissimilar to peers such as De La Soul sample-heavy boom bap with lyrics somewhere between thoughtfulness and playfulness. Interestingly, these choices reflect not only a style of curated anti-publicity – a more common gimmick today – a forthright attempt at total image control and cross-project world-building, but also an innate shyness largely seen to have stemmed from the passing of his brother Subroc in 1993. The countless pseudonyms, the many live appearance no-shows, and the fact he chose to obscure his face with a metal gladiator mask for the best part of 25 years, certainly paint a particular image. The perception of DOOM, real name Daniel Dumile, as a mysterious and evasive figure hasn’t come from thin air, and the man himself tended to that fire with jubilant glee. And with the outpouring of love and condolences from across the wider music world comes the curiosity of those who are yet to immerse themselves in the strange world of DOOM: who is this man in the mask and where possibly to begin? Here we hope to offer a brief introduction to some of his finest work to those of you asking those very questions.
The death of an artist draws a line in the sand, and we for the first time reflect on the collected works as a finite ecosystem, and what they have come to represent both personally and in the broader musical landscape. As a fan, this is of course a part of a continuous process, shaped and coloured by album cycles, initial points of exposure, developments in taste and personal factors. Madvillainy received rave reviews from most music critics, who praised both Doom's lyricism and Madlib's production.As the tragic passing of underground hip hop icon MF DOOM draws an endpoint on a prolific and creatively unparalleled career, the urge to make sense of his somewhat labyrinthine back catalogue grows stronger than ever. The album peaked at number 179 on the US Billboard 200, and attracted much attention from media outlets not usually covering hip hop music, including The New Yorker. While Madvillainy achieved only moderate commercial success, it still became one of the label's best-selling albums. Frustrated over the leak, the duo stopped working on the album and returned to it only after they released other solo projects. Fourteen months before the album was officially released, an unfinished demo of the album was stolen and leaked onto the internet. Madlib created most of the album's instrumentals during a trip to Brazil, where the production was composed in his hotel room using minimal amounts of equipment: a Boss SP-303, a turntable, and a tape deck. The album was recorded between 20 and was produced entirely by Madlib, with the exception of "The Illest Villains" which was produced by both Madlib and Doom. It was released on Maon Stones Throw Records. Madvillainy is the debut studio album by American hip hop duo Madvillain, a group consisting of MF Doom (MC) and Madlib (producer).
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