Daniel Dumile

Daniel Dumile is an American hip-hop artist who has taken on several stage names in his career, although he is best known today under the moniker MF Doom. He was born in London, England (said to be in the late 1960s or early 1970s) but later moved to the U.S. and lived on Long Island.

His debut in the world of rap music came when he made a guest appearance as Zev Love X on the song "The Gas Face" by the white rap group 3rd Bass. A few years later, as Zev Love X, he joined with his younger brother DJ Subroc in the group KMD (Kausing Much Damage). The group was signed with the Elektra Records label and released 1991's Mr. Hood as part of a short-lived trend of Islamic Five Percent Nation hip-hop outings, along with labelmates Brand Nubian and other groups like Poor Righteous Teachers.

However, Subroc was accidentally struck and killed by a car in 1993 while attempting to cross a busy Long Island expressway. Daniel was left traumatized by the death of his brother and refuses to speak about the incident in interviews to this day. Distraught yet hardened, KMD returned the next year with a new album entitled Black Bastards in the mid-1990s, but was dropped from the Elektra Records label due to a difference in opinion over the album's cover art (the cover featured a cartoon of a stereotypical pickaninny/sambo character being hung from the gallows). Elektra felt the artwork was controversial and racially offensive.

After this turn, the album went into limbo. Still dealing with the loss of his brother, Dumile became disillusioned and began to suffer from bouts of depression. He disappeared from the hip-hop scene for about five years, leaving New York City and settling in Atlanta to start a family. According to his official biography, he was also "recovering from his wounds" and swearing revenge "against the industry that so badly deformed him." Meanwhile, Black Bastards was heavily bootlegged and Zev Love's legend grew.

In 1998, he began appearing at the Nuyorican Poets Café, although few people knew that the man freestyling with a stocking over his face was the former Zev. The imaginative MC finally ended the mystery in 1999, resurfacing in his new identity MF Doom, inspired by the Marvel Comics supervillain, Dr. Doom ("MF" stands for "metal face"). He made up for lost time with a critically-praised new album, Operation: Doomsday on indie label Fondle 'Em Records, which was received very well by the majority of underground listeners.

Operation: Doomsday was re-released in 2000, which also saw a collaboration that he helped produce with MF Grimm, The Downfall of Ibliys: A Ghetto Opera. In 2003 he created the King Geedorah and Viktor Vaughn alter-egos to release two new albums and contribute to another. Starting in 2002, he also released several instrumental albums known as Special Herbs under the name Metal Fingers.

In 2004, Viktor Vaughn released Venomous Villain (also called VV2), an album which received mixed reviews for its length (33 minutes) and the fact that he only rapped for ten minutes. However, as MF Doom he also released Madvillainy with producer Madlib (known for being all five members of Yesterday's New Quintet), which was hailed as a classic for its excellent beats and abstract rhymes. Late in the year, he released MM..Food? with the Minnesota-based underground label Rhymesayers Entertainment, using various food items to metaphorically explain life and his own complex personality.

2005 is set to see the release of a new album, Live from Planet X, and later in the year he will be releasing Dangerdoom, produced with DJ Danger Mouse (of The Grey Album fame). A new KMD album, Mental Illness, is also in progress, along with The John Robinson Project, which will be a collaboration between Doom and Li'l Sci. Operation: Doomsday will also be reissued on compact disc (previously, it was only available on vinyl records). The Prof. Meets the Supervillain, a collaboration between The Professor and Doom, is due for a summer release.

To many rap fans, Dumile is considered to be somewhat eccentric, but rhythmic rhyming, word play and lyrical flows make him a favorite of underground hip-hop fans. He usually wears a metal mask while performing and refuses to be photographed without wearing it, and is obsessed with old comic books, especially those of the Fantastic Four and their battles with Dr. Doom. Dumile's influences seem to draw heavily from American comic books and classic Japanese science fiction like Godzilla. In his role as King Geedorah, he inhabits a rap circle known as "Monster Island" or "The Monster Island Czars", including rappers named Kong, Rodan, Jet Jaguar, and other rappers named after Japanese movie monsters.

Selected discography

• Operation: Doomsday as MF Doom (2001)
• Take me to your leader as King Geedorah (2003)
• Vaudeville Villain as Viktor Vaughn (2003)
• Escape from Monsta Island! with the Monsta Island Czars (2003)
• MM..Food? as MF Doom (2004)
• Madvillainy with producer Madlib as group Madvillain (2004)
• Venomous Villain as Viktor Vaughn (2004)
• Live from Planet X (2005)

External links

• MF Doom official site