5 MF Doom Collabs to Listen To
5 MF Doom Collabs to Listen To
Rallying against AI has had me reflecting on art I enjoy from artists who are able to playfully interact with, sample from, and grow from the art of others. MF Doom was the first to come to mind, a one-of-a-kind rapper who first came swinging into my life with his simultaneously sophomoric and sophisticated collaboration album "The Mouse and the Mask" in 2005, with DJ Danger Mouse. Inspired by, riffing off of, collaborating unexpectedly with Adult Swim and "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", I was hooked by his unique rhythm and voice. The song "Crosshairs" from this album contains one of my very favorite lyrics. Short and sweet; "Pelican, with some very soft mangoes", the sibilance and juiciness of the image floats over the violin riff, smooth and refreshing. An island in the song from which the rest sets off, we never quite reach that same tender place again. The characters jabbering away at the end remind me that it is this coarse and unlikely inspiration which led to the creation of something new and beautiful. A line that turns my thoughts to creamsicles.
Heat and time are entwined in many of Doom's flows. A favorite of mine is exemplified in a pair of lyrics from the song "ALL CAPS" (2004) done under the moniker Madvillain one year before "The Mouse and the Mask", a bi-coastal collaboration with LA producer and rapper Madlib. First he raps, "And you know I know that's a bunch of snow//The beat is so butter, peep the slow cutter", parlaying the chilly drug moniker into the slow chillness of butter; we feel the temperature rise soon with: "And he won't stop till he got the masses//And show 'em what they know not through flows of hot molasses." Delivered quickly, piping hot, it's a demonstration of lyrical dominance perfect for a song asserting who he is, and how to refer to him. Madlib performs the role of producer here, and the backing beat is rich with clarinets, trumpets, pianos, and drums. There are playful jokes cut into the final edit, catalyzing the usual rhythm of a "your mother" joke into a springboard for the back half of the song.
Another lesser known collaboration around this time was the track "More Soup" (2006) with the Canadian Hip-Hop artist Moka Only, this track is brimming with mutual respect, taking on a more traditional structure of one verse apiece. Both artists get a chance to display their unique flows, with Doom taking the lead. He conveys quiet assurance in the line, "DOOM name known as the Don for sure, troop//And he won't show his face or sponsor your group//He sneak up and throw you for a loop", setting the stage for Moka Only while flaunting his own mystique. Similarly, Moka Only draws more comparisons between himself and Doom than he sows discord. The refrain of the song, "More soup witcha meal?" builds on the gustatory pleasures of Doom's musical ouvre, his ten astonishing "Special Herbs" instrumental albums. (The first of which was further remixed in a collaboration with MF Grimm called "Special Herbs & Spices Volume 1" in 2004).
Late in his life, 6 months before his untimely passing in 2020, MF Doom collaborated yet again with a London musician named Wilma Archer on a track called "Last Sniff". In the first verse, he performs a delicate sleight of voice, buoyed once again by strings, "[…] As he put the ride in park//I see both eyes staring at the opposite side//Of the block as they spied, a fiend glide by//Hotter than July, what a bullshit disguise". The image begins to fragment with more and more information, and the sparking of heat in the lyrics combine with the swing of the strings to conjure hot days in the New York sun. It's a bittersweet locale for Doom to evoke, having been denied re-entry to the United States in 2010 after his first tour abroad. Due to a fluke in timing, Doom had been born in the UK while his mother was visiting family. His success had been met with the full force of the US government slamming the door in his face, denying him the ability to return to his home, New York, the city he loved and still rapped about years later.
In the face of that kind of crushing adversity, it's even more impressive to me how regularly throughout his life MF Doom collaborated with musicians of all kinds. From the gritty and juvenile Aqua Teen Hunger Force album to the Last Sniff with Wilma Archer, he was always looking for energy to play off of. For a man who did not like to show his face, he seems to have always been reaching out to others, to show this artful and unique side of himself. Music is like play, a state of freedom where call and response form a bond between participants, and between those participants and the audience. The last song I would like to recommend is "MEATHEAD" his second collab track done with Bishop Nehru in 2019 where he rhymes, "Mind your biz for me//It could even help you in the long run//What good's a song if the jawn's no fun, son?"
