Sampling Sade, superhero cartoons and Steely Dan, Operation: Doomsday was characterised by wonky, brilliantly disorientating beats, while Dumile’s new alter ego rapped with a deeper, raspier cadence, his rhymes offbeat, bleakly comic and menacing (though, as Coates observed, “other MCs are obsessed with machismo Dumile is obsessed with Star Trek”). The Marvel Comics evildoer sported his fake visage to obscure the disfigurement that inspired his villainy MF Doom, meanwhile, wore his tragic origin story on his sleeve, the title track to his debut album, 1999’s Operation: Doomsday, signalling his commitment to rap “til I’m back where my brother went”. Soon, however, he swapped this disguise for his trademark mask, fashioned after Fantastic Four’s nemesis Doctor Doom. For his early appearances at Lower East Side boho hangout the Nuyorican Poets’ Cafe, Doom performed wearing pantyhose over his face. In a genre where ego was all, Dumile remained laid back but still dominated as he broke tempos and rulesĭumile was down but not out, however, and – following a number of years in obscurity, licking his wounds and developing his idiosyncratic voice – he resurfaced before the decade’s end, assuming his final form: MF Doom. But KMD were done shortly before Black Bastards’ completion, Subroc was hit by a car and killed, and Zev Love X disappeared from the scene. Rejecting the album, Elektra freed Dumile from the label with a $25,000 payoff and ownership of the master tapes. KMD’s second album was a darker, denser beast, juggling Pharoah Sanders samples and Black nationalist lyrics, but their label Elektra objected to its stark title, Black Bastards, and a controversial album sleeve that saw a racist “Sambo” caricature hung by its neck. Their debut, 1991’s Mr Hood, signalled the trio worthy scions of rap’s golden age – witty and restlessly sample-happy like the Native Tongues posse, with a steely political undertow, evidenced by the acerbic, anti-racist Who Me? London-born Dumile had relocated with his family to Long Island in the 70s, and was now one-third of New York rap trio KMD, performing under the moniker Zev Love X alongside kid brother Dingilizwe, AKA DJ Subroc. Even his face was a mystery – he performed for much of his career behind a metal mask, and later exploited this concept to an absurd degree, sending masked impostors out to tour on his behalf (“I’m the writer, I’m the director,” he averred to the New Yorker’s Ta-Nahesi Coates in 2009).ĭumile made his recorded debut in 1989 as a fresh-faced 18-year-old, delivering the final verse on 3rd Bass’s classic diss anthem The Gas Face (MC Pete Nice’s verse testifies that Dumile actually coined the titular slang). An artist who thrived in the shadows, Dumile’s backstory was a chimera of myth-making and real-life tragedy. It makes twisted sense that we’re only learning of the death of Daniel Dumile, better known as MF Doom, two months after his passing, with scant accompanying detail.
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