Just Remember: All Caps, When You Spell The Man's Name

Artist: DOOM

Album: Born Like This

Year: 2009

Grade: 4 pretzels

In an era where rap seems divided between the exaggerated posturing of Top 40 rappers and the heavy-handed social consciousness of many indie and underground rap acts, MF DOOM offers a third way. The London-born MC has made a name for himself over the past fifteen years with his abstract, stream-of-consciousness lyrics and deadpan, gruff delivery. He also surrounds himself with an extreme air of mystery, always performing and being photographed while wearing a metal mask, emulating the Marvel Comic character Doctor Doom. In fact, comics seem to permeate DOOM’s entire aesthetic. His songs tend to be short sketches, each seemingly a frame in a bigger picture. It’s a remarkably playful and interesting way to record music.

MF DOOM also loves aliases. His real name is Daniel Dumile, but he’s recorded under the names MF DOOM, Viktor Vaughn and King Geedorah over the years, not to mention his collaborations as Madvillain and Danger Doom. He recently announced he’d dropped the “MF” from his name, creating this new DOOM alias. For all intents and purposes, the music still sounds the same, but every time Dumile introduces a new persona, it’s worth wondering why. If there’s any difference, DOOM sounds considerably more direct than before on Born Like This.

The biggest strength of DOOM’s music is its unpredictability. You’re never quite sure which set of free associations is gonna drift out of Dumile’s hazy mind. Often his albums are centered on a theme, allowing DOOM to riff off that core theme from song to song. Born Like This seems vaguely Batman-centric, which fits with DOOM’s ongoing obsession with superheroes and, particularly, supervillains. One of the album’s funniest moments is “Batty Boyz”, which questions some of the homoerotic undertones in old Batman shows (“grown man in a rubber suit, running around with a young boy”). It’s exactly the kind of hilarious, weedy observation you’d expect from someone who was awake at 4 AM watching old cartoons. Of course, DOOM also finds time to throw a few hilarious non-sequiturs into the mix, including “turns dirt to dollars like Don Henley”, which never fails to make me crack up.

DOOM also scores with some strong sketch songs. “Rap Ambush” is an entertaining, mostly nonsensical short, bookended with samples of police explaining an ambush in progress. Stranger still is “Cellz”, a lengthy song (by DOOM standards) that features a sample of Charles Bukowski reading a description of a dystopian future, all while the sounds of explosions and roars echo over a dramatic string sample. When Bukowski finally stops, DOOM picks up right where he left off, with his gravelly voice continuing the bleak vision (“sinister, don’t know what he’s saying but the words be funny”). It’s a surprisingly serious moment for the usually abstract DOOM.

Born Like This, like every other MF DOOM album, is a bizarre one. His strange style of wordplay can be confusing, dense and inaccessible. However, he’s definitely one of the most unique voices in hip-hop today. You’re never quite sure whether he’s trying to say something serious or not, since he jumps between subject matters at a moment’s notice. At least in my mind, though, it doesn’t really matter what he’s saying in the long run. Above all, I find DOOM’s style endlessly inventive and entertaining. Words themselves can be incredibly fun. I’m glad DOOM understands that.