MF Doom: A Biography
The MC known as MF Doom was born Daniel Dumile in London in 1971, according to StarPulse.com. His family moved to Long Island, New York, when he was a child. His hip hop debut came with the group KMD, which released the album Mr. Hood on Elektra Records in 1991. The group included Dumile (rapping under the name Zev Love X) and his brother, who went by the name Subroc. Tragically, Subroc was hit by a car and killed in 1993. According to the New Yorker, the second KMD album, Black Bastards, was never released by Elektra, due to controversy over the cover art, which depicted a cartoonish Little Black Sambo figure being hanged.
Zev Love X disappeared from the hip hop world for a few years. At the end of the 1990s, he resurfaced as MF Doom, "swearing revenge against the industry that so badly deformed him," according to Dirty Rat Attack. The "MF" stands for "Metal Face" or "Metal Fingers." To this day, the rapper keeps his face hidden during live performances by a metal mask.
In 1999, Doom released his debut album, Operation: Doomsday. He followed it with a flurry of productivity. In 2003 he released albums under two alternate aliases. The first was Take Me To Your Leader, as King Geedorah, named after Godzilla's monstrous opponent. He also released the album Vaudeville Villain under a new persona: Viktor Vaughn, the Vaudeville Villain. In 2004, he teemed up with producer Madlib to form Madvillain, and they released the album Madvillainy that same year. The album, full of short, idiosyncratic tracks and scratchy beats, was well received by critics and hip hop heads alike.
His collaboration with DJ Danger Mouse, in which the two combined to form Danger Doom, resulted in the album The Mouse and the Mask, which came out on Epitaph Records in 2005. Epitaph is better known for punk rock acts, such as NOFX, than hip hop, but the cartoonish irreverence of the album, which owed plenty of inspiration to the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming, seemed to fit their aesthetic.
Danger Doom followed up The Mouse and the Mask with a 20-minute EP of alternate recordings called Occult Hymn in 2006. While there has not been a new Danger Doom release since then, fans of the duo continue to hold out hope that they will reunite to wreak more havoc. Meanwhile, Doom has been keeping plenty busy, with solo albums such as Mm... Food and Born Like This, and the Special Herbs series of instrumental tracks.
Thanks to these sites for helping to compile this bio:
