Ode to the Supervillain

Since New Year’s Eve, the world has been grieving the loss of one of the most important figures in rap history, the legendary MF DOOM. It is impossible to do him justice in such a short space, but I felt compelled to write this to show even just a glimpse of his genius. You could fill a thousand pages with how much he meant to not just the rap game but to music as a whole.

This is a man who had a complete stranglehold on, and complete mastery of, the English language. Whether it was finding the smallest pockets of Madlib’s cinematic beats to flow on within Madvillainy, or on MM..FOOD, where he expertly combines his interest in comic books and superheroes with bar after bar about food, DOOM used his superpowers to full effect.

His songs felt like a true love letter to the art form, they made you appreciate exactly everything music could be. The self-professed ‘villain’ completely encapsulated what it meant to be an MC, and he knew it too.

DOOM’s music is not going anywhere. His influence spread far and wide, and will continue to be, one of my favourite DOOM videos is his performing at a festival with a young Tyler, the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt in the crowd screaming every word.

Releasing dense and esoteric yet airtight albums under monikers such as King Geedorah and Viktor Vaughn, his discography is like a graphic novel bubbling with innovation and mystique, with each character a different chapter in the eclectic and chaotic life of Daniel Dumile. He changed the way I and so many others heard music, his use of words melting into the production and making one formidable track after another. There is endless replay value from his music, catching a new bar or rhyme scheme every time, or noticing how something DOOM had said was used later by another rapper.

When the news broke musical creators and listeners alike, from Thom Yorke to Q-Tip, began an outpouring of appreciation and love to, in the words of the man himself, the best MC with no chain you ever heard.