Five times MF DOOM proved he was a lyrical genius
MF DOOM never quite broke into the mainstream in the manner that some of his contemporaries did, but, for those that did listen, he was up there with the very best rappers of his generation.
DOOM’s production was heavy with samples, and his lyrics were remarkably intricate, filled with rhymes, hidden meanings and jokes. His work, in its totality, painted a picture of an intelligent, studious and funny man behind the mask.
His songs were playful in a way that no other rapper has ever matched, which is by no means to suggest no other rappers are fun—it’s just that none of them sound remotely like DOOM did. From maintaining a supervillain persona onstage to writing dense bars, which seemed to gain a new layer with each listen, the man born Daniel Dumile Thompson was doing things creatively that made him a unique artist in his own lane.
Since his verses are worth spending some time on, here’s a look at five of his best lyrical moments.
Five times MF DOOM was a lyrical genius
‘That’s That’ – Born Like This (2009)
The rhymes of ‘That’s That’ immediately pummel the listener’s brain. It’s a bit overwhelming how many he manages to fit in, right from the start. “Already woke, spared a joke, barely spoke, rarely smoke / Stared at folks when properly provoked, mirror broke,” he raps, relentless, from the song’s opening, but that’s just a warm-up. As the song progresses, DOOM manages to slip in phrases like “auditioning morticians”, “ignoramuses enlist and sound dumb”, and “rectal hysterectomy”, among other delights, and he does so with total ease.
It’s difficult to simply read those combinations of words, never mind rapping them with something approaching grace, but he does it. He seemed to get a kick out of the challenge. In an interview with The New Yorker in 2009, he reflected on his early career and essentially admitted to the joy rhyming gave him. “Rhyming wasn’t that popular back then,” he said, “but it was fun”.
‘Vomitspit’ – Mm..Food (2004)
Lifted from his acclaimed Mm..Food album from 2004, there is so much to unpack in ‘Vomitspit’ that it’s difficult to know where to start. It’s typically littered with tongue-twisters and hidden meanings, so let’s just focus on one: “He’d rather eat a sand sandwich salad / It might need salt like your man’s bland ballad”. That phrase “sand sandwich salad” can wash over you if you don’t take care to think about it, because it sounds like a fairly meaningless, albeit fun, play on words. But he’s actually getting at something concrete here.
He’s talking about how he would rather go through something terrible—in this case, eating a sand sandwich salad, which would be an awful experience—than to produce music for the sake of appealing to the masses—a “bland ballad”. He adds salt to his songs, and salt here, we can assume, is whatever bits of eccentricity and genius DOOM possessed that made him sound the way he did.
‘The Drop’ – Vaudeville Villain (2003)
‘The Drop’ is featured on Doom’s third studio album, Vaudeville Villain, which is credited under his pseudonym Viktor Vaughn. Working as Vaughn, Doom allows himself to become a bit more savage than he might otherwise be, so, in this track, where he calls out critics and rivals, he really lets loose. “Yep—listenin’ to nuttin’, takin’ no suggestions / Or destructive criticisms, that can’t improve on perfection”, he spits at those enemies at one point, characterising his own music as “perfection”.
He fits his usual feverish rhyming schemes into the song—“At least that’s what they say, and who the fuck is they? / Make a hick say, ‘What the hey?’ brought that chick from sick bay”—and tells some surreal jokes—“The Klingons are now aboard the Enterprise rental vessel”—and, while the track may be a bit harsher than DOOM is typically is known for, it does highlight so much of what made him great.
‘Guv’nor’ – Key to the Kuffs (2012)
DOOM was born in London and remained a British citizen throughout his life, but he did consider himself to be American, and it’s in the US that he spent most of his life. Still, ‘Guv’nor,’ and the album it came from, Key to the Kuffs, are a nod to his English beginnings. In addition to the glib references to English mannerisms and ways of speaking—“’Ello, guv’nor!”—DOOM actually raps about the ongoing legacies of imperial domination, too. He raps, “As the dollar continues to lose momentum / He need land from murdered Indians that represent ’em / Gold is up, urgin’ all thugs / Trade in y’all chains for cash and splurge it on drugs”.
The fact that he is able to meld such a dark subject into an otherwise funny song is incredible, and that’s arguably not even the most impressive thing. He manages to get a rhyme out of the name of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull. Who else could manage to do that?
‘Rhymes Like Dimes’ – Operation: Doomsday (1999)
Another song in which DOOM rhymes faster than it’s even possible to decipher as a listener, ‘Rhymes Like Dimes’ is, upon closer, steadier inspection, a song of boasting, in which he brags that he sells rhymes in the same way that other people sell drugs. As he puts it at one stage, he “keep a pen” like a “fiend keep a pipe with him”.
It’s another fun song, where Doom asserts his own lyrical mastery with some intricate rhymes and occasionally wild, spacey imagery. But, amid all his cartoonish fun, there’s a line he slips in that’s actually really profound, capturing something of the essence of American culture. “Only in America could you find a way to earn a healthy buck,” he raps, “and still keep your attitude on self-destruct”. ‘Rhymes Like Dimes’ was featured on his 1999 debut Operation: Doomsday, but, more than a quarter of a century later, that line has certainly lost none of its potency.