MF Doom

Daniel Dumile (July 13, 1971 October 31, 2020), also known by his stage name MF Doom or simply Doom (both stylized in all caps), was a British-American rapper and record producer.

Dumile was born in Hounslow, London, on July 13, 1971, the son of a Trinidadian mother and Zimbabwean father.

He was the eldest of five children.

According to Dumile, he was conceived in the United States, and happened to be born in London because his mother was visiting family.

As a child, Dumile moved with his family to Long Island, New York, and grew up in Long Beach on Long Island.

He said he had no memory of his London childhood and his parents had no affiliation with British culture.

However, he remained a British citizen, never gaining American citizenship.

Dumile began DJing during the summer after third grade.

As a child, he was a fan and collector of comic books and earned the nickname "Doom" (a phonetic play on the name Dumile) among friends and family.

He began his career in 1988 as a member of the trio KMD, performing as Zev Love X.

As Zev Love X, Dumile formed the hip hop group KMD in 1988 with his younger brother DJ Subroc and Rodan, who was later replaced by Onyx the Birthstone Kid.

A&R representative Dante Ross learned of KMD through the hip hop group 3rd Bass and signed them to Elektra Records.

After a hiatus, Dumile reemerged in the late 1990s.

In the late 1990s, he settled in Atlanta; he had moved to Georgia in the mid-90s.

According to interviews with Dumile, he was "recovering from his wounds" and swearing revenge "against the industry that so badly deformed him".

Their recording debut came on 3rd Bass's song "The Gas Face" on The Cactus Album, followed in 1991 by their debut album Mr. Hood.

Dumile performed the last verse on "The Gas Face"; according to Pete Nice's verse on the track, Dumile created the phrase.

The group disbanded in 1993 after the death of member DJ Subroc, Dumile's brother.

On April 23, 1993, just before the release of the second KMD album, Black Bastards, Subroc was struck by a car and killed while crossing the Long Island Expressway.

Dumile completed the album alone over the course of several months, and it was announced with a release date of May 3, 1994.

KMD was dropped by Elektra and the album went unreleased due to its controversial cover art, which featured a cartoon of a stereotypical pickaninny or sambo character being hanged.

After his brother's death, Dumile retreated from the hip hop scene from 1994 to 1997, living "damn near homeless, walking the streets of Manhattan, sleeping on benches".

In 1997 or 1998, Dumile began freestyling incognito at open-mic events at the Nuyorican Poets Café in Manhattan, obscuring his face by putting tights over his head.

He turned this into a new identity, MF Doom, with a mask similar to that of Marvel Comics supervillain Doctor Doom.

He began performing at open mic events while wearing a metal mask resembling that of the Marvel Comics supervillain Doctor Doom, who is depicted on the cover of his 1999 debut solo album Operation: Doomsday.

He adopted the MF Doom persona and rarely made unmasked public appearances thereafter.

Bobbito Garcia's Fondle 'Em Records released Operation: Doomsday, Dumile's first full-length LP as MF Doom, in 1999.

Dumile's collaborators on Operation: Doomsday included fellow members of the Monsta Island Czars collective, for which each artist took on the persona of a monster from the Godzilla films.

Noted for his intricate wordplay, signature metal mask, and "supervillain" stage persona, Dumile became a major figure of underground hip hop and alternative hip hop in the 2000s.

After his death, Variety described him as one of the scene's "most celebrated, unpredictable and enigmatic figures".

Dumile was born in London and moved to Long Island, New York, at a young age.

During Dumile's most prolific period, the early to mid-2000s, he released the acclaimed Mm..Food (2004) as MF Doom, as well as albums released under the pseudonyms King Geedorah and Viktor Vaughn.

Black Bastards had been bootlegged by that time, but was not officially released until 2000.

He later used a mask based on the character Maximus from the 2000 film Gladiator.

Madvillainy (2004), recorded with the producer Madlib under the name Madvillain, is often cited as Dumile's magnum opus and is regarded as a landmark album in hip hop.

Madvillainy was followed by another acclaimed collaboration, The Mouse and the Mask (2005), with the producer Danger Mouse, released under the name Danger Doom.

Though he lived the majority of his life in the United States, Dumile never gained American citizenship.

In 2010, he was denied reentry after returning from an international tour for his sixth and final solo album, Born Like This (2009).

He relocated to London and, in his final years, worked mostly in collaboration with other artists, releasing albums with Jneiro Jarel (as JJ Doom), Bishop Nehru (NehruvianDoom), and Czarface (Czarface Meets Metal Face and the posthumous Super What?).

Dumile died in 2020 from angioedema following a reaction to a blood pressure medication.