Hip-hop has no shortage of larger-than-life characters and tall tales. One of its most confounding operators was a cult underground rapper-producer most often known as MF Doom, whose death was announced at the end of 2020. Throughout his career as Doom, Dumile (pronounced “doom-eye-lay”) Daniel Thompson Jr wore a custom-made mask, fuelling his myth and safeguarding his anonymity.
Against prevailing 00s hip-hop narratives – first-hand street verité, conspicuous consumption – Doom created a stable of fantastical personae. His aesthetic was indebted to comic books, monster movies and low-rent TV soundtracks. He made mischief, sometimes sending other people to perform in his stead.
And he was particular about how his name was written. “Just remember all caps when you spell the man name,” he specified on All Caps, a cut from his beloved 2004 collaborative album with producer Madlib, Madvillainy. A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip dubbed him “your favourite MC’s MC”, while figures as disparate as Thom Yorke, Tyler, the Creator and writer-producer Cord Jefferson (American Fiction) penned heartfelt tributes on social media when Doom’s death was announced. He had died in October 2020. It was very him that the news came out three months later.
In a career and life full of fictions, the truth – as this excellent, detailed biography makes clear – was often as mind-boggling. Born in London, Doom was raised in New York, where he was involved with a cult called the Nuwaubian Nation. His brushes with the pop mainstream were regular – another collaborative album The Mouse and the Mask (2005), with producer Danger Mouse, also yielded a guest spot on Gorillaz’s second LP, 2005’s Demon Days. Doom also had his own line of Nike Dunks and Clarks Wallabees.
But he was defiantly underground, an imperative born from early success that soured when his original hip-hop crew was dropped by its label in 1994 after the sudden death of his brother, 19-year-old Dingilizwe, known as Subroc.
Eventually reincarnated as a fictional supervillain, Doom operated outside the major label system, just as often earning money from collaborations with the Cartoon Network. Hip-hop writer SH Fernando Jr (author of 2021’s From the Streets of Shaolin: The Wu-Tang Saga) benefits from an insider’s understanding of the milieu and provides generous context, covering the character of the trickster in Black culture from Papa Legba to Stagger Lee, as well as the minutiae of Doom’s gear and Marvel references.
One of the chief fascinations here is that even Doom’s super-fans knew next to nothing about the man himself – not least that he spent his last years incognito in Yorkshire. One night after a 2019 gig at Leeds venue the Brudenell Social Club, hip-hop fan Geoff Barrow, formerly of Portishead and later of Beak, incredulously signed a Beak poster for him. An inquest detailing Doom’s death in Leeds’ St James’ hospital at 49 from a rare reaction to medication contains exactly the kind of humanising information that he sought to keep from the public eye.
In 2010, learning he was stuck in the UK because of his unresolved US immigration status, Doom moved in with Lex Records label manager Will Skeaping (who eventually swapped the music business for Extinction Rebellion). Skeaping is erudite on this antihero’s appeal, and the way the mask worked both ways, allowing fans to invest wildly into Doom’s fabulising. “Everyone projects on to Doom,” Skeaping notes. This unmasking does not diminish his myth.
• The Chronicles of Doom by SH Fernando Jr is published by Faber (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
