Elektra Records signed KMD, but before they could glimpse the release of an actual album, DJ Subroc was hit by a car and killed. In the late ’80s Daniel Dumile (pronounced doom-ih-lay) was rapping under the name Zev Love X in a group called KMD with his brother DJ Subroc - the chrome mask that would later turn Dumile to DOOM was nowhere to be found. MF DOOM’s origin story is shadowy and unclear by design. Madvillainy was, and still is, a reminder of the dirt and grit that’s an integral part of the makeup of hip-hop. Artists like El-P, Little Brother, Deltron3030, and Cannibal Ox were making music more accustomed to the dark spaces of the underground, where the primordial ooze of hip-hop catalyzes artists that are either too unpolished for bright lights, or have no interest in them whatsoever. Ten years later we find Macklemore collecting rap awards at the Grammys. Madvillain, though, belongs to the other category of early-aughts hip-hop artists: those that actively avoided the influence of pop.
Another 2004 release, Danger Mouse’s Grey Album, even grafted one of rap’s biggest artists ever onto one of the greatest pop groups of all time. Prominent 2004 releases like Twista’s Kamikaze, Talib Kweli’s The Beautiful Struggle, and Kanye West’s College Dropout, were crafted largely around soul samples just like those on Madvillainy, but Kanye’s pop-sensible fingerprint pushed those albums toward the mainstream. There were the artists that fully embraced the integration of hip-hop into pop culture. The seminal collaboration between two of underground hip-hop’s most respected members came about at a time when hip-hop was, in many ways, split between two camps. The cutting edge of the genre has been found under rocks, in dark corners - something that’s never more true than when you speak of the woozy beats and lexical gymnastics of MF DOOM and Madlib’s Madvillainy. Born in unofficial dance parties spread only by word of mouth, hip-hop’s beginnings are rooted away from the mainstream. If that’s the case, I’m proud to say that Madvillainy was my 36 Chambers.The underground has always been hip-hop’s lifeblood. It’s a melding of the minds.Įarl Sweatshirt once said it did for us what Wu-Tang did for '80s babies. Madvillainy is so much more than just a dope collaboration. Even when he “hold the microphone and stole the show for fun,” DOOM and Madlib are swinging for the fences on every single track. When he’s not flexing about how he’s got the “best rolled L's” (“ America’s Most Blunted”), he’s dressing down the police force with reckless abandon (“ Strange Ways”). “ The rest is empty with no brain but the clever nerd / The best MC with no chain ya ever heard,” DOOM snarls at the opening of “ Figaro,” internal rhymes falling in lockstep with the muted thump and guitar strums of Madlib’s beat. Its greatness stems from being a truly great rap album even when separated from the pedigree of everyone involved. It isn’t even great just because of how its greatness feeds into the legends of both the metal-faced villain and Oxnard, CA’s finest producer. It isn’t just because this is the album that put Stones Throw Records on the independent music map. Danger Doom (Danger Mouse & MF DOOM) - The Mouse and The Mask (2005) Hood is a fun and breezy record that helped lay the groundwork for the villainy that was to come. Where else will a rapper chart out the chase for Little Black Sambo with Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street? Even given its content, Mr.
Many of DOOM’s trademarks can be traced back to this album: his obscure sampling palette (the album’s titular narrator of sorts is culled audio from a language-learning tape), his internal rhyme schemes, and his conceptual genius. Their debut album is a walking tour of Long Beach, New York, made up of wide-eyed Afrocentric raps over sweet, tinny R&B flips. He, his brother DJ Subroc and Onyx The Birthstone Kid subscribed to the same freewheeling positive vibes that members of the Native Tongues like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul did. Before the mask and the mystery, there was Zev Love X, a Five-Percenter with a high-pitched voice and bars ready to unspool. Hood isn’t technically a DOOM album, there is no MF DOOM without KMD.
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