MF DOOM is disinterested in hip-hop. MF DOOM is not uninterested in hip-hop. While these two claims may seem contradictory, they sincerely capture the essence of what makes DOOM’s music special.
DOOM came up during New York’s Native Tongues hip-hop movement as a young member of the duo KMD, alongside iconic outfits like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul. KMD featured MF DOOM, or Daniel Dumile, as Zev Love X and his brother, DJ Subroc. Subroc was fatally struck by a vehicle at the peak of the group’s career, and the death haunted Dumile for years. It initiated a downward spiral and a reclusive nature within Dumile that eventually spawned his resurgence as DOOM. DOOM’s first solo album, Operation Doomsday (Complete) (1999), showcases Dumile in green-cloaked attire that is reminiscent of Marvel character “Doctor Doom,” and DOOM would soon don a mask that was inspired by the film
Gladiator
(2000). “Doctor Doom” (a.k.a Viktor Vaughn) wore his mask to hide his mangled and deformed body, while Maximus (in
Gladiator
) wore his to simultaneously cover his identity while evoking strength. In both cases, each character felt a personal compulsion for a return to public life but one that was on their own terms. This is exactly what DOOM is doing with his first LP. KMD’s label, Elektra Records, tussled with DOOM over the release of the group’s final album, consequently disaffecting DOOM from mainstream music, opting for a more independent route from then on.
DOOM spent his early solo career creating a foundation of principles that would guide not only how he approached the rest of his years rapping, but for how listeners should interpret his rhymes. On “?,” featuring Kurious, DOOM establishes the groundwork for the substance of his character and musical stylization: “By candlelight my hand will write these rhymes ’til I’m burnt out/Mostly from experience, s**t that I learned about/Topics and views, generally concerned about/With different ways to come up and earn clout/I take a look at my life and pace the trails.”
DOOM’s use of past experiences to direct his initiatives for the future elicits an irreverent parallel with the creation of the United States Constitution. Following the Articles of Confederation, two factions arose that eventually dominated its reformative conceptual discourse: Anti-Federalists and Federalists. Federalists wanted Anti-Federalists to give their proposed Constitution the benefit of the doubt in terms of the meaning of its minutia. Anti-Federalists were vehemently opposed to this, and proposed further analysis of the Constitutional plan in a disinterested light. This meant that Anti-Federalists desired as objective an outlook as possible within the new Constitution’s creation; it implied that all parties’ interests, even those who were not directly involved in its creation, should not be overlooked. If Anti-Federalists merely accepted the face-value sentiments of the original Federalist outline, that would have been an uninterested approach; one that is careless and is executed in a manner that suggests their stake in the matter is not significant enough to compel discussion.
Why is the creation of America’s foundational documents relevant to MF DOOM, a rapper? It is because MF DOOM’s lyrics and music are his personal constitution of expression, and DOOM has the same attitude toward it as Anti-Federalists did toward the U.S. Constitution. Dumile is known for his various personas: King Geedorah, Viktor Vaughn and MF DOOM. While these seem like disparate modes of creative expression, they are actually coping mechanisms for his own aforementioned biographical story in the music industry. The precedents set by DOOM’s past experiences inform his future. Similarly, Anti-Federalists did not want to accept the repetition of a dominant group setting the rules for others (as they did for the Articles), just as DOOM does not want to conform to the standard public-facing existence of the music industry.
This is what ultimately established the baseline for how DOOM raps. DOOM cannot tolerate corporate hip-hop, but rapping is his natural talent and he feels an innate responsibility to use it for revenge, as well as personal introspection. He is uninterested in the genre as a whole because of his received maltreatment and trauma, both in the music industry and with his brother’s passing. Although, when he decided to return, he chose to commit to a craft that is wholly Daniel Dumile with all his respective idiosyncrasies. DOOM’s rejection of the music industry’s commercial commingling is captured by his 2011 interview with the Red Bull Music Academy, where he states that “I don’t really listen to current hip-hop where I know who is who, to the point where I’d say, “I want a beat from this dude, I’d like to work with this cat.” Later in the interview, DOOM references his alter-egos when joking that “there’s a little rap beef starting right now between DOOM and Vik [Viktor Vaughn]. Vik is plotting on him ’cause he’s jealous.” DOOM sees himself as his only competition and that is his way of remaining objective, like the Anti-Federalists, about his curative process. While other rappers write for hits or to belittle one of their musical adversaries, DOOM is constantly metaphorically, and in the last example literally, battling with himself. And it is this discourse that produces the music, his personal Constitution, that we are all so fond of.