MF DOOM aka Daniel Dumile (July 13, 1971 – October 31, 2020), best known by his stage name MF Doom or simply Doom (both stylized in all caps), was a British-American rapper and record producer. Noted for his intricate wordplay, signature metal mask, and "supervillain" stage persona, Dumile became a major figure of underground hip hop in the 2000s. After his death, Variety described him as one of the scene's "most celebrated, unpredictable and enigmatic figures".
Born in London, Dumile moved to Long Island, New York, at a young age. He began his career in 1988 as a member of KMD, performing under the name Zev Love X; the group disbanded in 1993 upon the death of member DJ Subroc, Dumile's brother. After a hiatus, Dumile reemerged in the late 1990s, performing at open mic events while wearing a metal mask resembling that of Marvel Comics supervillain Doctor Doom, who is depicted on the cover of his 1999 debut solo album Operation: Doomsday. He adopted the MF Doom persona and rarely made unmasked public appearances thereafter.
Between 2003 and 2005, Dumile released four solo studio albums, including the critically acclaimed Mm..Food (2004) using the MF Doom moniker, one under the pseudonym King Geedorah, and two as Viktor Vaughn. He also released three collaborative albums during this period, for a total of seven albums in three years. Most notable among these collaborations was the 2004 album Madvillainy, released with producer Madlib under the name Madvillain. Madvillainy is often cited as Dumile's magnum opus, and is regarded as a landmark album in hip hop. Around this time he also released an album with producer Danger Mouse under the name Danger Doom.
Though he lived the majority of his life in the United States, Dumile never gained American citizenship and was denied reentry in 2010 after returning from an international tour for his sixth and final solo album, 2009’s Born Like This. He relocated to London and, in his final years, worked mostly in collaboration with various other rappers, releasing albums as Doomstarks (with Ghostface Killah), JJ Doom (with Jneiro Jarel), NehruvianDoom (with Bishop Nehru), and Czarface Meets Metal Face (with Czarface).
Early life
Dumile was born in London on January 9, 1971, the son of a Trinidadian mother and Zimbabwean father. He said he was conceived in the United States, and happened to be born in London because his mother was visiting family. As a child, Dumile moved with his family to Long Island, New York. He grew up in Long Beach, New York, but remained a British citizen, never gaining American citizenship. He said he had no memory of his London childhood and his parents had no affiliation with British cultural identity.
Dumile began DJing during the summer after third grade. As a child, he was a fan and collector of comic books.
Career
1988–1997: KMD, Subroc's death, and hiatus
Dumile as Zev Love X (left) with fellow KMD members DJ Subroc and Onyx
As Zev Love X, the first of his many pseudonyms, Dumile formed the group KMD in 1988 with his younger brother DJ Subroc and another MC, Rodan. When Rodan left the group, Zev found another MC, Onyx the Birthstone Kid, to replace him. Artists and repertoire representative Dante Ross learned of KMD through the hip hop group 3rd Bass and signed the group to Elektra Records. Dumile and KMD's recording debut came on 3rd Bass's song "The Gas Face" on The Cactus Album, followed in 1991 by KMD's album Mr. Hood. Dumile performed the last verse on "The Gas Face"; according to Pete Nice's verse on the track, Dumile came up with the phrase. In May 1991, Dumile and Onyx testified before the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration in support of a voter registration bill.
In 1993, just before the release of the second KMD album, Black Bastards, Subroc was struck by a car and killed while attempting to cross the Nassau Expressway, and that same week the group was dropped from Elektra Records. The album was shelved before it was released due to its controversial cover art, which featured a cartoon of a stereotypical pickaninny or sambo character being hanged. After his brother's death, Dumile retreated from the hip hop scene from 1994 to 1997, living "damn near homeless, walking the streets of Manhattan, sleeping on benches". In the late 1990s, he left New York City and settled in Atlanta. According to interviews with Dumile, he was also "recovering from his wounds" and swearing revenge "against the industry that so badly deformed him". Black Bastards had become bootlegged by that time; it was not formally released until 2000.
1997–2001: Operation: Doomsday and production work
In 1997 or 1998, Dumile began freestyling incognito at open-mic events at the Nuyorican Poets Café in Manhattan, obscuring his face by putting tights over his head. He had taken on a new identity, MF Doom, patterned after and wearing a mask similar to that of Marvel Comics supervillain Doctor Doom.
Dumile released three singles on "Bobbito" García's Fondle 'Em Records: "Dead Bent" (as Metal Face Doom), "Greenbacks" (1997), and "The M.I.C." (1998). In 1999, Fondle 'Em released MF Doom's first full-length LP, Operation: Doomsday. Among the collaborators were fellow members of the Monsta Island Czars collective, for which each artist took on the persona of a monster from the Godzilla films. Dumile went by the alias "King Geedorah", a three-headed golden dragon space monster, modeled after King Ghidorah from the Godzilla series. Jon Caramanica, in a review of Operation: Doomsday for Spin, emphasized the contrast between Dumile's flow as Zev Love X in KMD and his revised approach as a solo artist: "Doom's flow is muddy, nowhere near the sprightly rhymes of KMD's early days, and his thought process is haphazard."
Dumile produced almost all the instrumentation for his solo releases. In 2001, Dumile began releasing his Special Herbs instrumentals series under the pseudonym Metal Fingers.
2002–2004: King Geedorah, Viktor Vaughn, and Madvillainy
In 2003, Dumile released the King Geedorah album Take Me to Your Leader. Geedorah is credited as producer, but only appears as an MC on four tracks. The majority of vocal tracks feature guest MCs, and the album features several instrumental montages of sampled vocals from old movies and TV shows—a technique employed on most of Dumile's albums. Later in 2003, Dumile released the LP Vaudeville Villain under the moniker Viktor Vaughn (another play on Doctor Doom, whose "real name" is Victor von Doom). In 2004 he released a follow-up LP under the Viktor Vaughn moniker, Venomous Villain. Later in 2004, the second MF Doom album Mm..Food was released by Minnesota-based label Rhymesayers Entertainment.
Photo of a man with a short goatee and mustache wearing a durag
Madlib in late 2003, around the time he was working on Madvillainy with Dumile
Dumile's first commercial breakthrough came in 2004, with the album Madvillainy, created with producer Madlib under the group name Madvillain. Madlib and Dumile met in 2002 at the Stones Throw Records headquarters in Los Angeles. They recorded the album in a series of sessions over two years before a commercial release on March 23, 2004. Madvillainy was a critical and commercial success,[14] and has since become known as Dumile's masterpiece.[39]
2005–2009: Danger Doom, Born Like This, and Ghostface collaboration
Although still an independent artist, Dumile took a bigger step towards the mainstream in 2005 with The Mouse and the Mask, a collaboration with producer DJ Danger Mouse under the group name Danger Doom. The album, released on 11 October 2005 by Epitaph and Lex, was done in collaboration with Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and featured voice-actors and characters from its programs (mostly Aqua Teen Hunger Force). The Mouse and the Mask reached #41 on the Billboard 200.[40] Critic Chris Vognar, discussing the role of comedy in hip hop, argued that "Doom and Danger exemplify an absurdist strain in recent independent hip-hop, a willingness to embrace the nerdy without a heavy cloak of irony".[41] In 2005, Dumile made an appearance on "November Has Come", a track on Gorillaz's 2005 album Demon Days.[42]
Dumile produced tracks for both of Ghostface Killah's 2006 albums Fishscale[43] and More Fish.[44] It was also announced that the two were working on a collaboration album together as Doomstarks.[45]
Dumile's Born Like This was released on Lex Records on March 24, 2009. The album was Dumile's first solo album to chart in the US.[46] In a largely favorable review for Pitchfork, Nate Patrin cast the album as a return to form for Dumile, following a period of limited output.[47] Patrin observed that Dumile's lyrics and flow—"a focused rasp that's subtly grown slightly more ragged and intense"—were darker in tone on Born Like This than in earlier records; he also highlighted the overtly homophobic "Batty Boyz" (whose title evidently refers to batty boy, a slur), a diss track against unnamed rappers.[47] Steve Yates, reviewing the album in The Guardian, likewise saw Born Like This as hearkening back to Dumile's earlier output.[48] The album, Yates wrote, presented Dumile at "his scalpel-tongued, scatter-mouthed best".[48] Both Patrin and Yates noted the influence of Charles Bukowski on Born Like This: the first line of Bukowski's poem "Dinosauria, We" gives the album its title.[47][48]
2010–2020: Move to London, Key to the Kuffs, NehruvianDoom, and Czarface Meets Metal Face
Photo portrait of a man wearing a golden mask and hoodie, holding a sampler and pointing at the viewer
Dumile in 2010
In early 2010, Dumile released the EP Gazzillion Ear on Lex, including a remix by Thom Yorke and two mixes by Jneiro Jarel.[49] A further remix by Madvillain featuring a voicemail message from Kanye West was released online.[50] The EP coincided with Dumile's first performances outside North America. On 5 March 2010, Lex and Sónar presented the first Doom show in London, at the Roundhouse in Camden.[51] Expektoration, Dumile's second live album, was released on 14 September 2010 through Gold Dust.[52]
After completing his European tour, Dumile was refused entry into the United States.[53][54] He settled in the UK and began recording an album with fellow Lex artist Jneiro Jarel under the moniker JJ Doom.[55] Dumile contributed two exclusive JJ Doom tracks to the Lex 10th-anniversary compilation album Complex Volume 1: an alternative version of "Retarded Fren" made with Yorke and Jonny Greenwood,[56] and the Dave Sitek remix of "Rhymin Slang".[57] They were released digitally in December 2011, and released on vinyl on Record Store Day 2012. The JJ Doom album Key to the Kuffs was released on 20 August 2012, and included guest features from Damon Albarn, Beth Gibbons of Portishead, Khujo Goodie of Goodie Mob and Dungeon Family, and Boston Fielder.[58] Reviews of Key to the Kuffs in Pitchfork and Fact emphasized its references to Dumile's "exile" in the United Kingdom,[59][60] while Resident Advisor noted its play on Britishisms in tracks like "Guv'nor".[61]
In February 2013, Ghostface Killah said that he and Dumile were in the process of choosing tracks for a collaborative album.[62] In 2015, Ghostface Killah announced that the album, Swift & Changeable, would be released in 2016; it remains unreleased.[63][64]
NehruvianDoom, Dumile's collaboration with rapper Bishop Nehru, was released on October 7, 2014.[65] Dumile produced all the tracks on NehruvianDoom, often using beats developed in the Special Herbs series; vocals are primarily Nehru's, with some contributions from Dumile.[66] The album was Nehru's major label debut.[67] Critics emphasized Nehru's comparative youth (he was still in his teens when the album was recorded) and the consequent limits to his artistic achievement on the album—especially given its brevity, at just over 30 minutes.[67][68] Dumile's contributions were also seen as limited: Pitchfork wrote that he often seemed on "autopilot";[66] XXL suggested that neither he nor Nehru were able to "push the envelope".[68]
Dumile was featured on The Avalanches' single "Frankie Sinatra" alongside Danny Brown in 2016.[69] In August 2017, an Adult Swim executive announced that Doom would release a collection of music, to be titled The Missing Notebook Rhymes, which would consist of songs from his upcoming projects as well as featured appearances on other artists' songs. The Adult Swim website was to release one new song per week over the course of 15 weeks.[70] However, the arrangement was canceled in mid-September after the release of only seven tracks.[71]
In February 2018, Dumile and Czarface released "Nautical Depth", the first single from their collaborative album, Czarface Meets Metal Face.[72] The album was released on March 30, 2018. In a lukewarm review for Pitchfork, Mehan Jayasuriya compared verses by Open Mike Eagle favorably to Dumile's own, but noted that Dumile's contribution to "Nautical Depth" exhibited his "once razor-sharp lyricism".[73] Ben Beaumont-Thomas, in The Guardian, was more complimentary, noting Dumile's "stoner surrealism" in "Captain Crunch".[74]
Aside from the album with Czarface, Dumile's musical output in the final three years of his life was limited to one-off guest appearances on other artists' songs.[75] His final recording released during his lifetime was a guest verse on the July 2020 song "Cookie Chips" by Rejjie Snow and Cam O'bi. His first posthumous recordings were appearances on two songs for The Music of Grand Theft Auto Online: Cayo Perica Heist—"Lunch Break" by Flying Lotus and "The Chocolate Conquistadors" by BadBadNotGood—both released in early December, before his death became publicly known at the end of the month.[76] Shortly after the announcement of Dumile's death, Flying Lotus revealed that they had been working together an as-yet unfinished collaborative EP.[77]
MF Doom persona
Portrait illustration of a man with thinning hair wearing a metal mask and T-shirt
Portrait illustration of Dumile from a poster promoting his 2011 Born Like This tour of the UK
Dumile created the MF Doom character as an alter ego with a backstory he could reference in his music.[78] The character wore a mask similar to that of Marvel Comics supervillain Doctor Doom,[25] who is depicted rapping on the cover of Dumile's 1999 debut album Operation: Doomsday.[79] Dumile wore the mask while performing, and would not be photographed without it, except for short glimpses in videos and in earlier photos with KMD.[80] Later versions of the mask were based on a prop from the 2000 film Gladiator.[81]
Academic Hershini Bhana Young argued that, by appropriating the Doctor Doom mask, Dumile "positions himself as enemy, not only of the music industry but also of dominant constructions of identity that relegate him as a black man to second-class citizenship".[25]
Dumile sometimes sent stand-ins to perform in the mask, which he saw as a "logical extension" of the concept but angered audiences.[78] Dumile initially claimed that he had lost weight and thus looked and sounded different.[82] At a 2010 show in Toronto, an imposter was booed off stage before being replaced by Dumile.[83] In an interview with The New Yorker, Dumile described himself as the "writer and director" of the character and that he "might send a white dude next ... whoever plays the character plays the character".[78]
In November 2019, during his performance at the Adult Swim Festival, electronic artist Flying Lotus announced that he would be joined onstage by Dumile; instead, the masked figure who appeared on stage was revealed to be comedian Hannibal Buress. Dumile's involvement in the prank has not been confirmed.[84]
Style and artistry
Dumile's lyrics are known for wordplay, and his productions frequently incorporated samples and quotations from film.[85][26] Bradley and DuBois, describing Dumile as "among the most enigmatic figures in hip-hop", wrote that Dumile's "raspy baritone weaves an intricate web of allusions drawn from comic books and metaphysics along with seeming nonsense and non sequiturs".[22] According to an obituary in The Ringer, "his flow was loose and conversational, but delivered with technical precision", and his usage of rhyme and meter eclipsed that of Big Pun and Eminem.[75]
Legacy
Upon his death, Variety called Dumile "one of the most celebrated, unpredictable and enigmatic figures in independent hip-hop".[86] In 2013, Thom Yorke, who collaborated with Dumile on two occasions, said he was his favorite rapper: "The way he freeforms his verses and puts it all together, I don't think anyone else quite does it like that."[87] After his death, Yorke said: "He was a massive inspiration to so many of us, changed things... for me the way he put words was often shocking in its genius, using stream of consciousness in a way I'd never heard before."[87] Although Dumile spent most of his career as an independent artist and never achieved a platinum record, his lyrical style had a large influence on his contemporaries and a younger generation of rappers.[88] El-P of Run the Jewels described him as a "writer's writer".[89] Stereogum, reviewing Operation: Doomsday on its 20th anniversary, noted Dumile's "formative" influence on numerous younger rappers.[90]
Personal life
Dumile's worldview was informed by Islamic religious beliefs and the Afrocentrism espoused by African-American Muslims. His parents raised him and his brother as Muslims in the Five-Percent Nation, a religious movement influenced by Islam.[20] Dumile's father taught him about pan-African history, including historical figures such as Marcus Garvey and Elijah Muhammad — lessons that he then strove to impart upon his peers.[91] By the early 1990s, Dumile and the other members of KMD identified as a member of the Ansaar Allah Community, later known as the Nuwaubian Nation.[92] In their music, the members of KMD professed a religious message based on tenets of Nuwaubianism, which Dumile distinguished from Five-Percent beliefs in an early interview.[93] In the music video for "Peachfuzz", Dumile and the other members of KMD wear kufi caps.[94] By 2000, though he was no longer as strictly observant, Dumile still participated in Nuwaubian events such as the Savior's Day celebration at the Tama-Re compound in Georgia and held a positive opinion of the community.[95]
Dumile was refused reentry to the United States in late 2010 after completing a European tour.[96] Although he had lived in the country for most of his life, he never became a naturalized citizen.[97][98] He had previously avoided leaving the United States—it had only been his second international tour—but had acquired a British passport prior to the tour. He had believed he would be able to secure reentry based on his longterm residency and family connections.[96] The denial of reentry forced Dumile apart from his wife and three children, and for nearly two years he saw them only via video calls or during their brief visits to the United Kingdom. He was reunited with his family when they moved to London in 2012.[7] The same year, Dumile said he was "done with the United States".[96]
In December 2017, Dumile announced that his 14-year-old son, King Malachi Ezekiel Dumile, had died.[26][99]
Death
On December 31, 2020, Dumile's wife announced on social media that he had died on October 31, aged 49. His representative confirmed the death. The cause of death was not announced.[100][101] Numerous musicians offered tributes, including Danny Brown, Denzel Curry, DJ Premier, El-P, Flying Lotus, Ghostface Killah, JPEGMafia, Noname, Q-Tip, Questlove, Tyler, the Creator,[89] and Thom Yorke.[87] After Dumile's death came to light, musician Tim Burgess hosted a listening party for Born Like This.[102]