MF Doom – Page 11 – Grown Up Rap

Let’s hope 2015 is full of MF Doom goodness

DJ Premier has been busy conducting interviews over the last few days, documenting the sad demise of his beloved D&D Studios. We’ve been reading along with a few tears in our eyes, but there was also some enticing details from Primo about an extended deluxe version of the PRyhme album. That alone would be exciting enough, but when Preem added that one of the tracks will feature MF Doom, us and everybody else started losing our shit.

There’s many artists we’ve dreamed about hooking up with Metal Fingaz over the years, but Premier has always been right around the top. Catch them both at their best, which is pretty much always, and this could be incredible. It would also be the prefect way to kick off a year that, metal fingers crossed, will bring us a lot of Doom.

There’s that long-delayed and almost mythical full length album with Ghostface Killer. GFK himself recently hinted it is coming this year, and for now it has at least been confirmed that Doom will feature with Ghost on his upcoming Sour Soul album with BADBADNOTGOOD.

In a rare interview with Bonafide magazine last year, Madlib also seemed to suggest that he and MF are at the very least throwing around ideas for the next Madvillain project. That news almost trumps everything else listed above.

Who else is on that list of our dream MF Doom collabs, you ask? Well, some are from way back, like the thought of him sharing the mic with Sir Menelik (currently somewhat AWOL from the game), Company Flow era El-P, Edan, Ill Bill and Kool Keith (before you purists go nuts at us, we know Kool Keith was on Venomous Villain, and there are also tracks with El-P dotted around online, but we want a more significant set of hookups).

Current artists on the wishlist include Action Bronson, Your Old Droog, and the modern era El-P (riding shotgun with his Run The Jewels partner Killer Mike of course). A few months back, 9th Wonder also mentioned how he’d love to work with Doom, and the prospect of that is equally incredible.

If just some of these projects see the light of day, this could be another vintage year for good hip-hop music.

Rare old video of MF Doom way before the mask

Images of MF Doom without the mask on are rare. Dig around YouTube and you’ll find some of those old KMD videos with him in, back when he was known as Zed Love X. Since then though, clear shots of the man with the government name Daniel Dumile have been hard to come by.

Look closely at the Viktor Vaughn Mr Clean video and you do catch some glimpses, but these are obscured by the animation. It all adds to the mystique of course, and its one of the things we love most about the mythical Metal Face Doom.

A little insight is nice once in a while though, which makes this little gem of a video doing the rounds yesterday a bit special. Its from 1991, where a fresh-faced 19 year old Zed Love X addresses congress peeps about Rock the Vote and other initiatives to get young people voting.

It’s interesting to hear him drop knowledge, but even more fascinating when you remember this is the same man that has gone on to give us so much good music since. Watch the clip here:

http://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?c4513596

Read our review of NehruvianDOOM here.

Album review: NehruvianDoom. Good, but should have been better.

Few artists have released as many consistently great albums as MF Doom. Partner him up with one of the most gifted rappers of the new generation, and this could have been a classic in the making.

Sadly, it isn’t. NehruvianDoom is a very good album, but never quite lives up to the promise. The biggest problem is Metal Fingers himself, or more specifically, the lack of him. He’s absent on all but four tracks, and Om only has him doing the hook. To be told we are getting a new project by one of the most skillful artists of all time, to then find he’s not on every track is frustrating, especially when the album has been packaged with the same mashed-up naming convention as MF’s other great collaborations (GhostDoom, DangerDoom, JJ Doom, Madvillian).

When he does feature though, he’s on point as ever, effortlessly dropping gems like “A game winning strategy/support your favorite charity/playing with polarity could drain a whole battery”. He also produces every beat, and there’s little to fault here either. He can even still just about get away with having long skits.

As for Bishop Nehru, it’s the perfect showcase for a talented emcee that seems to grow in confidence and skill each outing. There’s no denying the kid has a bright future, although his lyrics can start to wear thin over the course of a full album, even one as short as this (NehruvianDoom is just 10 songs deep, weighing in at a slender 36 minutes).

It’s by far the best thing Nehru has achieved in his short career, and will help keep him at least a tiny bit rooted to the underground scene when the inevitable major league debut comes.

For MF Doom, its falls some distance from the quality we got with Madvillian, Viktor Vaughn and other Dumile classics, but still a better album than most other artists are capable of. As an elder statesmen of the game, it’s refreshing to see Doom passing the baton to the young Nehru. Fingers crossed he doesn’t go and drop it.

NehruvianDoom is out now, on Lex Records.