R.I.P. MF Doom

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Interview with Doom about the recording of Madvillain, how he wrote to and around Madlib's instrumentals, how he wrote rhymes more generally - and also talks about his son who died tragically young.


"You have to go the extra mile to use a technique like that in your writing. When you’re looking at quality of wordplay, you’re looking at, how many words repeat in a bar, or two bars? How many syllables can you use that still make sense in a song? In certain ways, you get a triple word score. You know how in Scrabble, you have triple word score joints, the way you get points based on words, and how they correlate on the board? It’s similar to getting points like that, if you really take it to the next level.

What I be looking at is the quality of the rhyming word: phonetically, how the tone is, in the pronunciation of the word. Regardless of language—you can be fluent and speaking Spanish, Arabic, whatever. You can use an Arabic word to rhyme with a Spanish word and have English slang all in between it. As long as the word itself rhymes, you still get points for that word. And the reference is another way of bringing that same thing home. How many references can you cross and still stay on topic? And still rhyme? The more complex the subject matter and wordplay is, that’s where you get your points.

I’m a rhymer, so I go for points. I ain’t going to be talking shit about the next dude, or bragging about shit I got. I talk broke shit, I talk about shit I don’t got, or things I’m striving for. Say you’re speaking from a point of view where you’re talking to yourself, in maybe a sad mood. How do your tones come across? Can people feel what you’re saying? Can they hear what you’re saying? Are you well pronounced? Maybe you purposely were a little bit sloppy with it, to bring the point across. Can you bring the point across and still get the rhyme points? It’s like gymnastics on paper."
 

version

Well-known member
Thoughts on the superhero/villain-comic book aspect? It's part of what he is, but I'd say I sometimes feel I like DOOM despite that side of him. There's just something about it that makes me a bit embarrassed. It's that cartoons and cereal thing I think Luka mentioned re: the Beasties, although it's much more overt with DOOM. I mean he's literally got a cartoon of himself eating cereal on the cover of Mm..Food...

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version

Well-known member
The Operation: Doomsday reissue looks horrible. Who thought this looked better than the original?!

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linebaugh

Well-known member
Thoughts on the superhero/villain-comic book aspect? It's part of what he is, but I'd say I sometimes feel I like DOOM despite that side of him. There's just something about it that makes me a bit embarrassed. It's that cartoons and cereal thing I think Luka mentioned re: the Beasties, although it's much more overt with DOOM. I mean he's literally got a cartoon of himself eating cereal on the cover of Mm..Food...

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I get where youre coming from but I think DOOM is so alien it doesnt feel like an embarrassing appeal to the listener. Also helps his visuals have always been on point. Danger Doom is the only one that gives me embarrassing cartoon and cereal feelings.
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forclosure

Well-known member
I don't find it embarassing if anything what makes the schtick embarassing is alot of his fans on places like reddit and whatever who buy too much into the character that they forget there's a person under there and that it stems from a really sad melancholic place, like on one level sure it was his way of saying i'm a grown man and not gonna play these industry games but it's also to do with the shame of unfulfilled potential with what happened with KMD and his brother.

Doom to me was always more of a "man down the pub" kinda guy there's people who get dazzled by the pagentry and the rhyme schemes but often ignore that he talks alot of street shit in his lyrics and really he was just a guy who liked making interesting funny raps and coming at typical rap topics from a really unconventional angle
 
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forclosure

Well-known member
Aesop Rock also comes to mind in this instance, those rap twitters that rate rap songs by word count and unique words used in verses and a blight and misunderstand rap on a fundamental level to me
 

forclosure

Well-known member
Dangerdoom looks like that because it was made in part and influenced by the Cartoon Network programming block Adult Swim (if anything Doom's involvement with that heavily influenced where they would go in terms of aesthetics and musicians they would work with etc)
 

forclosure

Well-known member
he was a really ahead of the curve rapper in ALOT of ways that KMD track Luke posted rappers weren't rapping over beats that sampled Jody Whatley in 93, 80's R&B your Atlantic Starrs,James Ingram,The Deele that shit was considered really uncool to rap over by "heads" and critics at large.

and he wasn't rapping over them shits for "ironic" reasons either there's a real sense of loss that comes through on doomsday
 

forclosure

Well-known member
here's a later track that i LOVE got a real gonzo 50's apocalyptic bent to it, his voice got much gruffer later on and could sometimes sound clogged but he could really get sinister given the right beat
 
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