Madvillain — “All Caps”

Because that's not for you. The günstig Max Mart minutes are already announced and announced by McDonald's.

“Unfabmented, price-influenced and Italian restaurants.”

Face, disfigured and a horrible accident. A once-famous and now broken man unrecognizable to the world and unrecognizable to himself. He'd suffered unimaginable loss. He'd lost close family. He'd lost his musical soulmate. He'd fought the cruel and predatory music industry and lost nearly everything else. Now, in near-total isolation, he battled his demons, his addictions, and he might lose that fight, too.

And yet he kept fighting. He physically rebuilt his own face, piece by piece. He stared at himself in the mirror until he recognized himself again.

“He mourned the dead, but he also seized. He plotted. He skeamed. He swore revenge on a fickle populous that claimed to love him, but could never truly understand him.”

And in the late '90s, when the time came to strike back, he burst back into public view and reclaimed the spotlight and unleashed his dastardly plan for total crushing war. So crushing world domination. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Gaines. In November 1999, country music mega-star Garth Brooks hosted Saturday Night Live and quite ominously introduced to the musical guest. Mysterious brooding, smoldering, star-crossed pop music mega-star.

Chris Gaines. Two things you got to know. Number one, Garth Brooks has sold 162 million records all time.

“Second, all time only to the Beatles with 178 million.”

And he's just one guy, right? Garth Brooks can still sell more records than anybody you can think of. Even if he'll only sell physical CD box sets in Wal-Mart's or pigly wig leaves or at car washes or whatever.

Garth Brooks is permanently unfathomably huge and never more so than he was a 1999.

Second thing you got to know is that Chris Gaines is Garth Brooks in a wig. I love it when he mumbles mysteriously through the verses here. And then he yells, "Hey, like somebody just towed his car. I am risking my life playing you footage of Garth Brooks as Chris Gaines on Saturday Night Live in 1999. This song is called Way of the Girl. This footage has been thoroughly scrubbed from God's own internet.

We ain't talking YouTube or peacock here. We're on the dark web now. Reddit, if Garth Brooks gets pissed at me for playing you this and personally burns my house down with me. And it please apologize to him for me and ask him to play unanswered prayers at my funeral. In 1999 at the very heights of his powers and empirically higher heights than virtually any single musician in world history. Garth Brooks slapped on a jet black emo haircut wig and a soul patch and reinvented himself as Chris Gaines.

An entirely fictional rock star with an incredibly convoluted fictional backstory. In September 1999, Garth released a new album with the unwieldy title Garth Brooks in dot dot dot the life of Chris Gaines.

This record sold 2 million copies, which would be a huge success for virtually anyone else.

But for Garth was a world historical catastrophe. This shit was flabbergasting. Nobody understood what he was doing here, no matter how hard he worked to explain it. Garth made an entire fake VH1 behind the music episode about the completely made up life and career of Chris Gaines. This is literally the first thing Chris Gaines says in it.

Sex. That's the greatest thing about being a musician.

“That is Garth Brooks as Chris Gaines. You can tell he's Chris Gaines due to the wig and the soul patch and the bright red quarters of sweater.”

That's Chris Gaines solemnly describing the roots of his life long canonical struggle with sex addiction. That is a core tenant of the Chris Gaines persona. I watched this entire behind the music episode and this was my reward. I just like women and I love communicating with them however that may be. But one man's communication is another man's fornication.

I have been thinking about the behind the music narrator guy saying, but one man's communication is another man's fornication for the last 48 hours. I've been practicing saying that in my own behind the music narrator voice. I think I would be good at that job. And then sometimes I reverse it.

“I go, but one man's fornication is another man's communication.”

Even though that's not accurate. One man's fornication is also another man's fornication. Okay, real quick. The abridged fake Chris Gaines backstory. Born in Brisbane, Australia raised in Los Angeles, St.

Mother, domineering father. In high school, Chris and his best friend Tommy, they start a rock band called Crush, which Chris describes here as a, quote, real intelligent monkeys, a real intelligent beetles kind of feel. End quote. Crush become famous, chart topping rock stars, but then Tommy dies in a plain crash. Chris is devastated.

And then Chris Gaines reinvent himself as a mysterious brooding, smoldering star-crossed pop music solo mega star.

His first blockbuster chart topping solo album, all of this is fake, is called straight jacket.

Two words, straight as in straight as an arrow, straight jacket. What? What? His second blockbuster chart topping solo album is called Fornicopia. Corner Copia with an F. There's an album cover, and you don't want to see it, or anyway, I don't want to show it to you.

That is an opt-in experience.

“Would you like to hear Garth Brooks say the word fornicopia out loud?”

You better prepare yourself. It was Chris's sophomore album, an album called Fornicopia, came out. In 1999, Garth Brooks also hosted a prime time hour-long NBC special, where he played a bunch of Chris Gaines songs and painstakingly explained the convoluted fake backstory. Of the Chris Gaines character to a live audience. I watched this recently on headphones on my laptop in the crowded waiting room of a Toyota service department.

While I got my many vans tires rotated, and when Garth Brooks said fornicopia out loud, I laughed hard enough to draw attention to myself. I thought I was prepared for him to say that, and I was not. If you're watching this NBC special, it's Garth Brooks as himself, with thinning Towsles grey hair, in front of a boisterous live audience that is both audibly thrilled, it's Garth Brooks, and clearly terribly confused. What is Garth Brooks talking about?

Notice that Garth can recite made up Chris Gaines' sales figures.

Fornicopia, not a real album, sold 14 million copies.

The convoluted fictional Chris Gaines' backstory goes on. He gets in a horrible car accident. He flips his Porsche or whatever in Malibu, his pelvis is smashed, his jaws almost ripped off, his face, his beautiful face, has to be totally reconstructed. He finally gets treatment for sex addiction. His mansion in Malibu burns down.

He discovers the love of one good woman. He heads down to Mississippi and undertakes a deeply personal search for the roots of rock and roll. Et cetera. The real life 1999 album, Garth Brooks in dot dot dot the life of Chris Gaines, is styled as a fake greatest hits album. And also is the pre soundtrack to a real-life Chris Gaines' themed movie called The Lamb, possibly starring Garth Brooks.

But that movie never gets made because the real-life album flops, because all of this is incredibly confusing.

Laund dot com describes the Chris Gaines' character as, quote, Ben Stiller impersonating Prince, and quote, Rolling Stone says,

“"Clearly this guy got run over by the crazy truck, and I'm talking all 18 wheels."”

And quote, variety refers to this whole fiasco as an alter ego trip. That's good. That's good. You want to know the absolute weirdest part of the whole baffling, impenetrable Chris Gaines' saga. The music itself is totally normal.

This is my favorite Chris Gaines song. It's called Main Street. It sounds like the wallflowers.

Unpressed at it, country mega star Garth Brooks decides he wants to build a fictional mysterious brooding

smoldering star-crossed sex-addicted pop music mega star from scratch. And he puts on a jet black emo wig and a soul patch, and he makes himself sound like Counting Crosse. Or maybe John Mayer, a Richard Marx, or unplugged era Eric Clapton. And the crowd in this NBC special, they're into it. Robust cheers, outstretched hands, et cetera.

The crowd is totally willing to accept these songs as new real hit Garth Brooks songs. The crowd is just totally unable to process them as old fake hit Chris Gaines songs. Maybe it's a high school's, maybe it's a teacher's, ten-two-spite palms, and the need to be teachers. Maybe it's a music, maybe it's a crack, maybe it's a pile, or could it be the lack? Come on, keep it down, smile on the crust, everybody get together.

There, that's his weird as the Chris Gaines album gets. A song called Right Now, in which Garth Brooks wraps, not really. He just sings a little faster about crack and the Bible, and pipe bombs underneath the bleachers, and then he sings the chorus to get together by the young bloods. That famous '60s hippy song.

“But I don't think that's what anyone remembers now about the Chris Gaines album.”

What most people remember now is the album cover. Garth Brooks, in the wig and the soul patch, his eyes smoldering behind the mysterious ominous mask of his bangs. Garth Brooks would seem to prefer that this cover is all you remember. Famously, Garth Brooks albums are not available on streaming, other than on Amazon,

but the Chris Gaines album is extra not available. You can find the Chris Gaines album on YouTube, maybe. Of course, you can buy a used CD, but I believe Garth Brooks is on the record as preferring, you not do that. This is all mostly a joke now. Any Buzzfeed type top 10 all-time rock and roll fiasco's list, there's Chris Gaines,

but I can still also genuinely admire the sheer confounding audacity of Chris Gaines, the heat check arrogance, the unprecedented superstar flex. What is the point of having pop stars? If they're not trying baffling, ill-advised catastrophic type shit, are you up on the Janet Jackson Panther situation?

I just heard about this. Honey Favdura, the great poet and author and friend of the show. Honey Favdura was just talking about this on Instagram. I had no idea. Janet Jackson, in 1989, just as Garth Brooks is getting started,

“Janet Jackson puts out her super blockbuster album, Rhythm Nation 1814, right?”

And she's starting a world tour, her first tour as an S tier all-time pop star. And Janet Jackson decides she wants a Panther with her on stage, a real-life Panther. Here's Janet Jackson, on stage in Miami with a live Panther, presumably in a cage or on a leash or something, right? And you know what happens, right? The very obvious inevitable, totally foreseeable thing happens.

The Panther piz all over the stage. The Panther pisses indiscriminately. Janet Jackson back up singers and dancers slipping all over the stage.

So, grudgingly, Janet Jackson is like, "Okay, never mind about the Panther."

And somebody in the Rhythm Nation gets a mop, and that's the end of it.

Janet Jackson has arrived because you have not truly arrived.

“As an all-time superstar, until you've attempted something ridiculous and failed spectacularly.”

Not to mention hilariously. What I will say about Garth Brooks as Chris Gaines. And I say this with the greatest of admiration is that I see that Chris Gaines album cover now. And I detect the faint but proud scent of Panther urine. So, Garth Brooks tried the whole pop star, alter ego thing, and he totally fucked it.

That's just a fact. But one man's fornication is another man's communication. So let's try this again. Let me rephrase, in 1997, the rapper and producer not previously known as MF Doom releases his self-produced debut 12-inch vinyl single, three songs. Dead-bent, gas-dralls, and hay.

“Hay is my favorite, hay exclamation point.”

There's more than one way to skin a cat. That's an old, tired cliche. The thing where a rapper rap something and then goes, "Let me say that another way." That's kind of a cliche also. This is not that.

None of this is any of that. Let's listen to this again. Let's all marinate. Let's really try to luxuriate in the astounding internal rhymes and bonus eliteration of, as a matter of fact, let me rephrase.

“With more rhymes than ways to fill a few lines these days.”

Unbelieveable. Try to hear this the way you might have heard it in 1997. You pick up this 12-inch at, let's say, fat beats, the Super Famous New York City record store. You buy this blind and unheard and unknown, just based on the record label. You buy this single because it's on the cool and prestigious, Fondolum records.

An actual record label with a name I will never get over as long as I live.

Shoutout legendary DJ and Fondolum owner, Babito Garcia. I don't know why he named his label that. Maybe you've heard the name MFDOOM before. Maybe you're big on a comic books and you immediately grasp that MFDOOM is explicitly modeled after infamous, fantastic, for our genemy Dr. Doom.

Or maybe not. His name aside, maybe you think you know who this rapper is and what his whole deal is, but probably you don't. And meanwhile, he's achieving total crushing world domination five seconds at a time. We've got most of the flow just not he knows. He holds mics like he knows karate blows.

That's incredible. That would sound cool if any medium cool rapper said it.

But this guy also says things that somehow only sound cool when he says it. Stuff like, "For the record, this is some shit I just thought of, y'all." That's also incredible. Somehow. The line, it's science fiction that's not permissible in no court of law, should sound clunky and overwrought and yet doesn't. There is some ineffable, non-chalantly startling quality to this person's voice.

The hyper casual rasp, the thunderbolt deadpan, the endless symphonic technicolor vibrance of his monotone. There is no hook here, no chorus, no pop oriented song structure, no ad libs. I did not realize until I read it somewhere, no ad libs, no doubled voices, no studio tricks to fame emphasis or consensus or camaraderie. Just a random, disheveled, loquacious guy sitting next to you at the bar and talking your ear off. Just a mysterious, faceless man rapping his ass off.

Also, is that Scooby-Doo? Yes, indeed. This man is rapping his ass off while sampling a 1972 Scooby-Doo cartoon. The exact sample sources worth revisiting, imagine watching this on TV and deciding to construct your entire nefarious world-conquering new rap persona around it.

Yes, if you're watching, that's the Adam's family. If I were Scooby-Doo an hour unfamiliar with the Adam's family, I go, ooh, and run away too.

“Imagine hearing that hey, in Harry Scooby, and using it to censor individual words, whilst you wrap your ass off.”

[Music] I'm at where your sister went. Also, this guy, in various songs, under various of guys's, this guy's going to spend a lot of time talking about other people's bad breath.

It's a pet peeve of his, I gather. I could go on where this song, hey, is concerned, and often I do, but give me one good zoinks and we'll get out of here.

[Music] Moving it broke off like end of fillies. I could listen to this guy just say things all day, and I become more fascinated with this guy, the less I understand him. The whole point of a well-deployed pop music alter ego is the uncertainty, the confusion, the initial total lack of backstory or explanation. Chris Gaines didn't work because Garth Brooks overexplained it. That's one reason it didn't work, whereas this guy's about to build his case as one of the most beloved rappers in history, because there is no real explanation for any of this beyond it's awesome.

Anyways, he'll clean up this song, hey, and speed it up a little and put it out again in 1999, and in that version, the closing line about meddling kids will really pop.

[Music] Unsetting bids. That's the real killer phrase in this whole song. If you're listening to this song for the first time, and you get really into this Scooby-Doo of it all, maybe you're smart enough to anticipate the meddling kids showing up somewhere, but no way you're prepared for him to rhyme, meddling kids with unsettling bids. Who is this person?

“Who was this person? What happened to this person that turned him from that person into this person? How many people is this person?”

How many heads a piece on average does all the different people this person is have, and what's the deal with the mask? His name is MFDOOM. You spell that in all caps. Maybe you've figured out that part without being told, or maybe you know it's all caps, because eventually, graciously, he told you that himself. [Music] My name is Rob Harvella. This is the 39th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s colon the 2000s, and this week we are discussing all caps by mad villain. The dasterly duo of the rapper/producer MFDOOM, and the producer/rapper Madlib, from their phenomenal joint 2004 album Mad villainy.

If you've heard this beat recently in a TV commercial for some artificial intelligence thing, I want you to forget you heard that, and or forget I just reminded you of it. We'll be back after these commercial messages. How you doing? Real quick, this is our 9th episode so far, also available on video, the video is optional, but, and I'm trying real hard not to read the comments, so I don't know how it's going for you.

“But here's how it's going for me. Look out, top 5 worst things about being a video podcaster now. Here we go, number 5, too much shit in my house. What is all this shit? What am I supposed to put all this shit?”

You've got key lights, I got waffle lights, I got myriad bulky tripods that I trip over constantly, I got a table here loaded up with unsightly cables and power strips and whatnot. I got no room to maneuver in my own office. I have defiled my own inner sanctum. I got dust out the wazoo, there is cat hair on the teleprompter. Yo, number 4, unflattering screenshots of my face, do not send these to me.

Number 3, TikTok in general, now I got to try to make social content. I got to put video clips from this show on TikTok, but I don't know how to use TikTok, and my clips, they get like 15 views total, and it makes me feel inept and angry and also ancient. Number 2, I got hello Wi-Fi issues. I work out of my house, I got a fancy camera, I got an SD card, and the camera recordings themselves, the digital video files that show generates are now so large, it's like 40 gigs per episode of stuff I got up low to the cloud, and the internet, the Wi-Fi in my house is so bad, that if I want to send these files to my producers quickly, I have to drive my laptop.

Across town, to my mother-in-law's house, because she has much faster Wi-Fi than I do. To be clear, I love my mother-in-law very much, and I greatly enjoy her company, and it's nice to see her. Maybe I bring her some soup, etc. But I frankly resent the fact that the superior cable fiber Wi-Fi is available in her neighborhood, but not in mine. And despite the fact that she can't log into Hulu without calling her daughter for help, my mother-in-law can nonetheless upload in 30 minutes what I cannot upload in 24 hours.

I cannot help but think that AT&T is antagonizing me personally. Also, confidential to T-Mobile. And finally, the number one worst thing about being a video podcaster, you guessed it knows hair.

“The best thing about being a video podcaster now is now maybe you can just sit here with me and stare at the mad villainy cover. So this is why I've got all this shit in my house. There are days when this is my favorite album cover ever.”

Today is one such day. Just a simple, ominous, black and white, ludicrously rad photograph of MF Doom, aka Daniel Dumele, formerly known as Zevlovax, currently also known as metalface, metal fingers, Victor Vaughn and my personal favorite King Yedera for now let's just call him Doom, all caps. So yeah, there's Doom, rap superstar on the cover of mad villainy, staring at you from inside the iconic eternal metal gladiator mask he never takes off in public. His eyes are just barely visible, but his eyes are staring comic book laser holes through you, whether you notice them or not.

“Eric Coleman, Dr. Cover photo, there's also a little orange box in the upper right corner, Jeff Jank, who designed the Mad villainy cover.”

A stone's throw records co-founder and art director Jeff Jank says he added the orange box because of Madonna, Madonna's self titled 1983 debut album is a black and white shot of her face with just a pop of color in the Oh in Madonna.

It looks pretty clearly red to me, though then again, I'm not stones throws art director all time great album cover regardless.

“All right, it is 1988 in the New York City rap duo third base have a splendid buoyant brass and yet modest little hit song on their hands called the gas face.”

If you ever wondered what 1988 looked sounded and felt like if you were super into hip hop, this will give you a decent idea in 1988 everyone danced like MC search in the gas face video just trust me on that. And here indeed we have a special appearance by the young rapper known for the time being as Zev Love X that's X evolves with a Z backward Zev Love X. Perkin is brim to the rim of my cup don't tempt me your empty so fill her up his name will change his face will change his tone will darken villainously, but the astounding internal rhymes are there from the very beginning.

And you'll do a million born on July 13th 1971 his mother's from Trinidad his father's from Zimbabwe and Daniel is born while his parents are visiting family in London.

In the late '80s, Daniel now going by Zev Love X and his younger brother, Dean Goli's way aka DJ Subrock, they started a rap group called KMD initially a trio with their friend on X the birthstone kid KMD stands for either causing much damage or a positive cause and a much damaged society causing much damage is better or at least it's way simpler.

“KMD is going to be making some noise real soon, but here in 1988 the gas face is Zev Love X's big debut.”

My favorite part of his verse is just the way he says Sanoko, it's a gas station.

It's truly delightful, but just a little bit heartbreaking, how young and fun-loving and quote unquote normal are young heroes Zev Love X sounds and looks here.

“Just a red skinny baby face teenager with glasses goofing around with his friends and explaining the red slang term he came up with that's a hit song. Now the gas face is a mocking contemptuous face you make at a person you dislike.”

You sort of greet your teeth and shake your head vigorously like, shh, ow ow ow. What nobody tells you about the gas face is it hurts, it physically hurts to do the gas face.

I can feel my brain rattling around in my skull naturally the fact that it hurts to do the gas face only heightens the insult the contempt conveyed to the gas face victim ingenious.

KMD's debut album is released in 1991 and is called Mr. Hood. It is excellence and brash and youthful and buoyant and somewhat deceptively upbeat.

“I say deceptively because Zev Love X starts this verse with holy smokes and old fashioned cousin to zincs, I think, and then he rails passionately against racism. Holy smokes, I say it's a joke to make a mockery of the original folks.”

This song is called "Who Me?" the full title is "Who Me?" question mark parenthesis with an answer from Dr. Bert, close parenthesis. That's Dr. Bert as in Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street. Yeah, the fundamental Saturday morning cartoons, silliness, radiating off this person is there from the very beginning. On this cam Di album Mr. Hood subrock handles most of the production and Zev Love X does the best and most prominent pure rapping. Zev Love X does here on a catchy and extra buoyant tune called Peach Fuzz. The video is really fun too.

Now there's plenty of vibrant and illuminating local detail here. Ask my anchor banker he understands those were cheesy local TV commercials. And for part of the video cam Di are wearing the white head wraps of the Ansaro Alach community, the very complicated black muslim group that Zev and Subrock were raised in. But yeah, big picture. This is a bouncy little song about struggling to grow a beard with a video where our young heroes ride bikes and try to pick up girls. The debut albums go its oversimplifying things to compare Mr. Hood to day lost souls three feet high in rising, which okay is a better and way more famous debut album and as a group day lost soul get a lot more time to evolve to get stronger and sharper.

So they can at least try to fight back against the predatory music industry that's so intent on stifling and oversimplifying them. As for cam Di tragically what you hear primarily on this Mr. Hood album now is potential.

Subrock's wake is devastated older brother and bandmate brings a boom box and plays songs from KND's not yet completed second album, which includes a thumping upbeat and eerily prophetic song called it sounded like a rock in which Subrock promises to haunt us all and he will.

“KND's second album is called Black Bastards. The cover drawing depicts a racist sombo type cartoon character hanging from a news as images go as vicious mocking defiant anti racist images go this feels pretty straightforward.”

But KND's record label freaks out at the cover and shelves the Black Bastards album and drops the group a group that now only consists of a still grieving Zev Lovex.

The Black Bastards album does finally come out in the year 2000 but by then it's a weird moving but deeply disorienting afterthought born into an entirely different universe.

A multiverse really.

“There is a profoundly uncomfortable June 1994 KND feature in the source magazine written by the journalist and author Ronan Roe where he interviews a grieving Zev Lovex shortly before Black Bastards get shelved Ronan writes quote,”

I ask if listening to and having to promote the Black Bastards album is a bother if hearing Subrock's voice doesn't reopen painful wounds. He leans forward in his seat his voice grows a little more forceful and Zev says it seems like I'm listening to two different people to tell you the truth.

“I'm not even that mother fucker from before I don't know different times what I'm doing now creatively is totally different.”

It's like him and me combined as one type shit and quote the article goes on quote it's like this the physical body is not us anyway Zev continues equating visiting a grave to worshiping graven images. Subrock's presence is luminous he tells me so the whole physical form shit is mad whack Zev pauses talking on the blunt he knows that subrock will live on through the good deeds he did in life through his music and in people's loving memories but still the pain is deep.

After a second Zev stares into his lap shakes the new port out of his pack and says I feel like a fucking piece of bullshit his face is a mask of torment.

And quote a couple years past Daniel do me a drops mostly out of sight and when he resurfaces he's got a new name the first of several new names and if he gets his way nobody's ever going to see his face again. In 1999 M.F. Doom releases his debut full-length album called Operation Doomsday that song is called Doomsday there is fantastic internal rhyming there supreme technical excellence yes fine sure absolutely nothing else matters there but.

Ever since the womb tell I'm back where my brother went M.F. Doom wears a quite literal physical mask everywhere always.

Per the great twenty twenty four book the Chronicles of Doom unraveling rap's masked icon a class written by s h for nando Jr. Doom got his first mask from a 99 cent store a plastic Halloween mask of the WWF pro wrestler cane spray painted with silver rustleium but somebody sat on that mask during an early M.F. Doom video shoot. Holy smokes whatever embarrassing shit you've done in your life at least you did an accidentally sit on M.F. Doom's mask.

This mask M.F. Doom is now one of the most instantly recognizable rappers in history and just as importantly he is also one of the least recognizable rappers in history without it is a family is a wife and children he has privacy the mask grants him both near total anonymity and permanent immortality given that he wraps like this all the time.

“It's on his called rhymes like dimes my favorite moment there, literally is a tie between classical slapstick rappers need chapstick and the part where he rhymes.”

Alamo with tallyho meanwhile dig the absurdly tasty sample from the landmark 1981 smooth jazz as pop Quincy Jones album the dude the rhymes like dimes sample can turn water into cocaine.

M.F. Doom is also your soul producer on this operation doomsday record he's flipping shoday he's flipping steely Dan he's flipping scooby do in fantastic for in various other cartoons he is in rapturing and terrorizing the populace ultimately under the alias metal fingers M.F. Doom will release a 10 volume series of instrumental beats called special herbs and that's a whole magnificent rabbit hole.

“We don't have much time for because I need to briefly introduce you to Daniel Dunele's next major alias King Gidera.”

I'm not going to try to sell you on it being the cleverest or the deepest line in rapt history.

The Gidera has arrived you guys can take five makes me laugh out loud each and every time I hear it I can't explain it it's a vocal tone thing I guess.

“Okay King Gidera the spelling varies King Gidera is a three headed outer space dragon serpent giant monster Kaiju situation who made his film debut in 1964 he is Godzilla's mortal enemy.”

The mortal is the wrong word he does not like Godzilla when Daniel Dunele is wrapping under the name King Gidera this song is called no snakes alive from the 2003 King Gidera album take me to your leader in the M.F. Doom universe King Gidera. The three headed Godzilla villain space dragon transmits his wraps telepathically two M.F. Doom the guy in the mask who then translates and physically audibly wraps those wraps the other thing I like about this song no snakes alive is that it arbitrarily speeds up.

A giant three headed space dragon kicking Godzilla's ass while telepathically wrapping sort of mellow type of fellow who sometimes spas on wife like off that little holy shit so that's happening.

Also in 2003 we get Vaudeville villain the debut album from Victor Vaughn the third major rapping Daniel Dunele alias a younger brassure snotier rapity rapping persona based on comic book supervillain doctor dooms alias Victor Vaughn doom but we'll meet Victor Vaughn the rapper in a second let's meet this guy first. Okay this song is called greenery and this guy's name is quasi-modo that's one of this guy's names and two of this guy's voices here.

madlib is born on October 24th 1973 in the luscious beach town of oxnard california a hundred miles or so west of LA his father is a soul musician his mother is a songwriter for his father.

madlib samples his first record when he's eleven years old James Brown doing it to death by the jabies madlib and two of his friends for a young brash modest fun loving rap trio called loot pack who make their debut in 1993 on an alcoholic's record the alcoholics.

“Kays instead of seas are in extra fun loving beer drinking rap group from LA I saw the alcoholic's live in Cleveland Ohio in the mid nineties on the warped tour.”

that possibly be right I swear I saw the alcoholics and rock it from the crypt played back to back if that sentence makes any sense to you know it doesn't would pack put out a few singles and a nineteen ninety nine debut full length album on stones throw records a very cool and prestigious LA based record label. madlib becomes stones throws resident mad scientist he lives in these stones throw house slash headquarters making beats all day in the basement which is a former bomb shelter literally called the bomb shelter.

“and in the year two thousand he makes his full length debut as quasi-modo on a critically acclaimed album called the unseen the deal with quasi-modo is that madlib comically pitch shift his voice and wraps alongside himself often about.”

greenery this song greenery is from the second quasi-modo album released in 2005 and called the further adventures of world quasi I'm playing you this on specifically because it features a third pitch shifted madlib voice.

namely the guy here who goes pass it around. I love the pass it around guy very much. Oh hello. Oh you're the money for it. Oh, I'm pretty sure that on this song.

Madlib is selling a bomb to himself and then smoking weed with multiple iterations of himself this guy in his stoned evil genius multiverse multitudes. This guy seems very much like MF duums kind of guy and so on so let's get these guys together already. this song is called accordion that's a sample from data lists the underground wrap luminary data lists and that we're using instrument you're hearing is not in accordion.

“But that's okay. I would honestly love to hear an argument that mad villainy the first and final proper album from mad villain the duo of MF duum and madlib released in March 2004 on stone's throw records.”

I would love to hear someone argue that this is not MF duums best album and madlibs best album but I personally cannot make that argument because mad villainy is preposterously fantastic. Living off borrowed time the clock ticks faster the thing with doom the rapper in any form including the three headed telepathic space dragon form. The thing with him is you can revel in the silliness and the bewilder meant in the aliases and the rabbit holes, but you can also zoom all the way back into the multi-next human core of this person's being which remains ever since the womb till I'm back where my brother went.

You can zoom back out to the supervillain cartoon character whose rhyming co-tex bow flex and joe text.

That's the end of that song accordion mad villainy songs don't need hooks and choruses or discernible song structures because every part of every song is the most important part.

Still back in the game like Jack LaLan take you know the main rock you're playing on a fast track to half insane even in the slow beat or that to speed or rock the game.

“Blast up the pain and falling songs lit in the booth with the best host dog ball hits on the roof in the west coast.”

Doing bong hits on the roof in the west coast you can picture doom Daniel the singular human on a rooftop in L.A. with Madlib Otis the singular human. Smoking on those trees at a hundred degrees there is a human connection here even if these two human guys aren't physically in the same room or even on the same coast. For very long Mad villainy the album can be a story about painfully human connections and disconnections the thirty three in a third book series there's a great thirty three in a third book about mad villainy published in 2023 and written by will haggle and like the stone throw records guys argue amongst themselves now about who deserves credit for this record.

In dooms manager at the time will Asia shabazz she argues with the stones throw guys and says she deserves the credit also in 2023 mf dooms widow.

Jasmine do mele Thompson she so's egon olipat former general manager of stones throw because he's in possession of thirty one of mf dooms rhyme notebooks and that is a whole ugly convoluted legal mess that dispute was settled confidential in 2025 and reportedly mf dooms widow got his notebooks back there is copious backstory. There's endless behind the scenes ranker and intrigue and sadness did I just obtusely mention that mf dooms died mf dooms died on october 31 2020 though this was not publicly announced until December 31 2020 he was 49 he died on Halloween and we found out on new years day you can miss him terribly and still be happy for him.

“That he's back where his brother went or or never mind any of that mad villainy is not a story about any of that at all.”

Mad villainy is the glorious comic book multiverse team up between two all time great rappers slash producers with multiple baffling electrifying aliases a piece and the resulting preposterously fantastic album does not take place on this planet are in this timeline or in any recognizable plane of existence at all.

I want to beat we have to want to know you badly.

We also have Kiki drawn the mix. You just today's look could tell us here.

“Mad villainy is one of these records where I have a new favorite part a new favorite micro moments every time I hear it.”

Sometimes I walk around my house going, you know it's a best to watch out and sometimes I walk around my house going. Mirror, bumping, one up, being boom, mirror, one up, boom, boom, boom, boom, but right now it's this part. This song is called bistro. It's the introduction to the album it's track four that's funny. bistro is a minute and seven seconds long and it's just doom listing all the artists who contributed to this album and they're all aliases of doom and madlib. We also have King Geterra on the mix. I love the way he says that.

Yesterday's new quintet is here. That's Madlib's jazz group consisting entirely of himself. I suddenly find this moment. This bistro introduction absurd and yet genuinely moving. Two guys who have imagined themselves as an infinite number of guys. Artists, superstars, super villains, space dragons. Mad villainy is the glorious sound of an infinite number of Panthers,

peeing on an infinite number of stages. The cartoonish audacity, the superhuman ingenuity that drives this one record by all these guys. Like Victor Vaughn. Say a quick hello to M.F. Doom Alius Victor Vaughn. The star of a couple great full-length albums who gets a song on Mad villainy called Fancy Cloud in which he castigates his girlfriend for cheating on him with you guessed it M.F. Doom.

Here, track 20 on Mad villainy is called all caps. It is two minutes and 10 seconds long. Objectively, the best part of this song is don't talk about my mom's yo. Your mother don't talk about my mom's yo is objectively the best part of all caps.

Although I've always been partial to the casual simplicity of hit it on the first try villain the worst guy.

The drum loop is a sample of a 1974 song called "Bumpin Bustop" by a group called Thunder in Lightning.

“I did not know that and yet I always subconsciously suspected it. All caps is an a TV ad right now for some AI thing, right?”

And I don't mean to be preachy or bitchy or nothing. I got no beef with technology as such even if the Wi-Fi in my house sucks. But I find the Mad villain AI ad oddly singularly appalling. Insofar as my understanding is that AI is a computer trying to convince you that it's human. So it's draining the world's oceans whilst barraging you with random facts and data and noise gleaned from humans. But you simply cannot fake. You cannot synthesize. You cannot replace the all-too-human frailty and complexity and audacity and ingenuity and interplanetary greatness.

That resulted in the two people who made Mad villainy by imagining themselves as way more than two people. You know?

“I guess what I really want to say about that ad is...”

Shit!

I just picture MF-DOOM in his chrome plated 25-pound metal mask going mad-med never like snott bubbles and leaving just a little bit of spit on the mask.

There's still a little kid watching Scooby-Doo cartoons with his little brothers and sisters lurking behind that mask. Some days I'm almost relieved that DOOM doesn't have to live on this planet anymore, but every day I'm grateful that he and Mad Lib let us visit them on all of theirs. We are so honored to be joined once again by open Mike Eagle, rapper and podcaster and comedian and friend of the program. His latest album is so great. It's called Neighborhood Gods Unlimited and you can catch him on tour very soon.

Mike, thank you so much for being here. Oh, it feels so good to be back. It feels so good to be back. It's wonderful. I love the stuff you talk about. Well, thank you so much. Likewise, it's always wonderful to talk to you and I have to talk to you about DOOM because if I'm not mistaken you have collaborated with DOOM twice. You have two songs with DOOM. Do I have that right?

You do have that correct. Two songs with DOOM. Two of my greatest life achievements.

“Okay, and I am trying to remember. I think did you ever talk to him? Did you ever meet him?”

I never talked to him. No, I met him.

It was always through a mysterious connection of third parties every time. It was like I was doing a drug deal.

I imagine that's certainly not unheard of as a rapper jumping on another person's song. How much harder? It's obviously I'm imagining you were very intimidated to be on a song like DOOM. But how much harder is it if you never talked to him if you have no chance to build any kind of rapport? Does that matter when you're collaborating or not really? It doesn't matter a lot. Like it does matter a little. I did feel more like okay, I need to bring, you know, my fire is stuff because it's not like I'm going to get to sit and chill with him and see what he responds to or what he don't and none of that.

So it was just that all had to be in the wraps and I just had to sit and hope that the wraps were good enough. Yes. Did you get any feedback after one?

No.

I'm not at all. Okay. Okay.

No, this is good news. I get it. Yeah, actually, I've learned that. That's funny. I've learned that specifically in rap. Okay.

Somebody doesn't say something bad happened.

I should just assume nothing bad happened. Okay. My head about whether or not I've made a mistake or I've run a foul of somebody or I've, you know, I ticked somebody off.

“What I've learned, I think about stuff like that way more than other people do.”

Sure. Sure.

Okay. So thinking about it in terms of the mad villain album, like I know doom and mad live mats in person and hung out a little bit and communicated a little bit between the two of them.

But not very often. I think the vast majority of the time like they're doing their own thing. They're both very mysterious like isolated figures like for a full album like this even in that situation. Do you not need to be in the same room and have like that sort of mind melds? Like when you listen to this album, does it feel like they weren't in the same room or it feels like they were like, what's your sense of the rapport that they established? However, they went about establishing it. In my mind, they are great for they were great friends.

My mind, they were hanging out all the 2003 working on this record. And I don't know why I feel that way, but I do. I feel like so much of so many of MF dooms wraps seem like they are in conversation with mad live right in the verses. It feels like he's talking. It feels like they're referencing inside jokes. Like it, it does to me feel as if they spend a lot of time together. So if I had been quizzed and asked if they'd spend a lot of time together, I would have said yes, but I guess I would have been wrong because I don't actually know.

I think I did read somewhere that like on every other project, doom is talking to himself in essence or just to an imagined listener, but specifically on mad villainy, he is talking to mad live. I think you're on to something there. And I think there's just such a rapport between them on that record. It does feel like they're bouncing ideas back and forth.

“It's like mad live flips an old jazz standard, and then an old jazz standard is playing. There's just a lot of that interplay that I think you have to establish somehow.”

Yeah, and to me, I just have this vision of my mind of them sitting on a rooftop somewhere sharing a blunt. Like I have pictures in my mind of mad live on a SP303 and doom on a MPC and the same. Like I just, they feel like the same person, you know, and there's so many overlasts with them. They're both MC and producer obviously though the needle is different in, in, in either case. They both have alter egos. They just have so much of what it seems to be a shared aesthetic that's just right in line with each other that to me, it seems like they hung out all the time.

Interesting to mad villainy now. What do you think they brought out of each other? You know, dooms already made half a dozen more than that. Like just dooms got such a chaotic catalog already by the time this record comes out. You know, mad lives worked with, you know, a loot pack, you know, quasi-modo yesterday's new quintet. Like they've got established careers. What's different about their approaches, both of them on this project. Like, what did they bring out of each other? I think with mad lib, I would say, because doom had self-produced operation dooms day.

He had worked with, I think the heat sensors on the Victor Vaughan album.

“And boom, fooled came out the same year, but I can't remember which one came out first, but that's another self-release one except for, I think count based D and maybe mad lib has a beat on that too.”

So it seems as if mad lib is maybe the best producer that doom had worked with up until that point unless I'm forgetting about somebody. And so it feels like he was positioned uniquely to just focus on the wraps. And a way where he could get really almost deeper than ever into the MF-dune persona as a recording artist, because he don't have to worry about the beat set off. It really feels like the MCing side of MF-dune is like fully unleashed on this project. And I wouldn't know what to say about the other side of that coin except it.

It sounds like mad lib at his most adventurous in terms of his digging.

It feels very like he picked up a record, sampled it through drums on it.

Like everything felt very raw and very fearless in terms of how mad lib is constructing these beats. And with no attention paid to where it's come from and whether or not these sounds go together or not. In a way where it's not overproduced, it's not overthought. And I'm not sure if that's something that doom brought Adam mad lib or if it was just kind of where he was, but it just seemed like that's where the perfect melding of styles comes in.

“Is Madville in the best doom album the best doom project?”

So this is what I'll say to that. It is widely considered the best one. Yes. And I don't necessarily agree with that. Okay.

But I also can't argue with it. Like so I think it's literally one of those instances where it's widely seen as the best, but it's not really my favorite one. So I don't want to call it the best for me. Okay. But I see no hill to stand on to say that it's not the best for anybody else.

Okay. So that said, what is your favorite? It's really tough, but I mean, probably the most the one that I come back to the most is food. It's probably going to come back to the most more personal enjoyment. Hmm.

The concept there is very solid, right?

“You know, like, what is it about, what is it about a food?”

Are you just, just the gourmand and you is attracted to that one or what is it about that record? What does gourmand mean? Is that about eating? Is that gourmand? That is about eating.

Yes. That's all right. I don't even know if I'm using that word correctly. But let's say that. But just assume that I know what I'm talking about as well.

Are you a foodie? I do like to assume that you want to talk about that. I am not a foodie, so that is not why. Okay. Okay.

I prefer doom best.

Like to me, the essential doom is doom wrapping over his own pizza.

Sure. Those are the pure doom albums. So operation doomsday, food, born like this. Like that's doom to me. So to me, food is like the pinnacle of him perfectly honing the MF doom approach to writing and recording.

And the doom sound where you could tell he is recording himself. There's no other engineer. It's like a minotipede studio like right. Right. We have pizza at an MPC like to me.

Food is the peak. The peak doom wraps. Don't beat. Okay. On a project.

When doom passed, you wrote this incredibly beautiful tribute to him. A song just called "Four Doom." You know, that you put it out. And on that song you say, we knew what it was since peach fuzz in the eighth grade. You know, so you were on him from the beginning.

And you talk a little bit about, you know, KMD, you know, the Mr. Hood album. And like just what you thought of him when you first heard him, which was all the way at the beginning. So I knew what it was since peach fuzz in the eighth grade. Sort of overstates my relationship with early KMD. Because I was kind of like, you know, and I even say eighth grade for the rhyme.

I was probably like nine when I first heard peach fuzz. And to me, it was, that was a song that was part of the milieu of watching videos on, you know, rap, sitting on a B.T.L.M. TV rap at the time. And it was positioned on the native tongue side of things where it felt like it went along with that.

But I never, I didn't hear, I didn't hear that came to the album for many years after that.

But I didn't have that relationship with that material specifically or where I keyed in on deserve love, ex and subrock. I just thought, oh, peach fuzz, that's a cool song. I like it when that one comes on the video show. But I didn't have the same relationship to that album as I would other stuff from that era. Okay.

So when Operation Doomsday comes out when he sort of re-emerges and re-emerges as MF dooms. Do you make the immediate connection? This is the peach fuzz guide. You come to that record with the entire sort of KMD saga.

“You know, black bastards, you know, subrock passing like, do you, is it immediately the same guy to you?”

Or is it's Operation Doomsday and those early singles like just the year zero of the doom persona? And you sort of start with a clean slate with this person.

I had zero idea.

“So the first MF doomsong I heard and had to be 97 was the single version of dead bent.”

Which I heard on WHPK radio. I fell asleep taping the rap show because it was on the night. I woke up the next morning. I'm on the train on the way to school playing my tape of last night. And I get to this song.

It's so bad. And this raw beat comes on. And it's doomsday just rapping. And it was sort of inline with a lot of what was happening in underground hip hop at the time. When you think about like, you know, cool Keith is Dr. Octagon.

And and and some of like the raw rock is stuff with like thirst and how to third.

Like that sort of of of of side of things. But there was something that just felt very different about it too that I couldn't even put my finger on. But I kept playing that song over and over again. And then a couple of weeks later almost the exact same thing happened with the single version of greenbacks. We're like, I go to sleep taping radio show.

I wake up and plant it on the way to school. And I am already. And and this is the case sample starts in this guy. It's just like going crazy on and it sounds so dark and energetic. But it also sounds like it's him and a bunch of other dudes having fun.

I don't know who it is people are. But like I'm learning from the the radio station host. The DJs that this is somebody named mfdome. So then I'm just searching for all the mfdome that I can find. I end up in either 97 or 98.

Getting an issue of. The magazine ego trip. Which is probably and and my opinion the greatest rat magazine of all time. And then there's an interview with mfdome. And this is when he's got the old.

The old master used to cut the first mouth up like it was.

Yeah, it was it was it was bad times. He had he had his mask on. But he had the he had the big. Puffy jacket with the fur around the side of the hood. It just was a dope crazy visual.

“And I believe it's from that article that I learned about his history.”

And I learned about him like that this was part of a reemergence of a person who had been around before. So yeah, I learned all that in real time over like 97 and 98. Who do was what his story was. And was able to start putting things back together from there. And operation doomsday, you know, the doom character is explicitly a comic book character, right?

And this is the late nineties, like there are blockbuster comic book movies. But this is before, you know, the MCU, right? Like comic books are not at the center of culture. Like they would be just 10, 15 years ago. In terms of his aesthetic, you know, I think a comic book,

like sampling Scooby Doo, like just the cartoons. You know, is association with cartoon network later in his career. Like did his, did he feel like a sub-cultural product in that era? Just coming strictly, you know, specifically out of comic books, out of cartoons. That kind of thing, like in the mid to late nineties.

And underground rap, it didn't feel that out of this world. It didn't feel that out in the field to have somebody with comic book references.

Like I never really even paid much attention to that.

It just always sounded like the same, like it sounded like the same sort of approach to sampling for a static that like, Rizzle would use with the Wu Tang. It was, it was that sort of seasoning. And, you know, I didn't, I never dug too deep on it. Because rap, especially underground rap, his sort of always had an obsession with 70s and 80s,

comics and cartoons. Yes. Yes, simply, you listen to a lot of the early Wu Tangers, a lot of like repurposing of cartoon intros, sampling, underdog and, you know, repurposing those lyrics into hooks and things.

“I think that, you know, there's a part of hip hop that is about, or, I mean,”

obviously not for every hip hop artist, but for many hip hop artists, just about like, Oh, what, what, what did I use to watch on TV growing up? And I sit in front of the TV and watch, and like the late 70s, early 80s. And all that makes its way back into the work. And to me, doing was just another extension to that.

It felt, it all felt very principal adjacent to me. Sure, of course. You know, the same sort of sampling for a static as, as what would happen with,

So maybe the biggest differentiator here is the mask itself.

And so as a wrapper yourself, is there any part of you that wishes that you also wore a 25-pound metal mask everywhere? Like that, that combination of being instantly recognizable and then completely unrecognizable without it is really interesting to me, just that dichotomy that he had from the very beginning. Like, what did you make of the mask as a new development in hip hop, maybe?

I think 25-pounds is too many pounds. Thanks a lot. I agree. I completely agree.

“You should do a mask as light at a net that seems like it could be very heavy on the neck.”

So that would be too many pounds. Sure. I, as a person who often finds himself feeling like the most accessible wrapper in the universe. Right. Like sure.

I feel like there's not a wrapper who people can think of who they feel like, feel confident they can reach out to. They can email you anytime. President company included, I suppose. Sorry about that. We're ruining the mistake.

No, don't. Right here. Don't you worry. No, that's the thing. There is no mistake with me.

That's my exact point. Because I don't have that. Okay. So in, in that sense, I see so much value and not having a face publicly. Like that is something I deeply envy is having that bit of separation between who I am as a person and what the musical output is.

“And I think there's so many benefits to it.”

And I, and doom, I don't think it's the, like when I think of the, the faceless person, I actually think it goes face first.

Because I remember he was trying to do it. Of course. He was early woo albums. He was trying to not show his face. There's. There's so like Billy. Look at Billy Woods. Like there's there's so many. That's right. That's right. That's right. It fits to it. Um, not only in the protection of one's own humanity and soul. Um, versus what, you know, versus the forces you get exposed to by putting work out there, which is face associated with it. I think there's a, there's another benefit where you take the person out of it in a way where suddenly.

For people, it feels like there could be anybody behind that mask, which leads to this other underlying song, which is, uh, everybody behind that mask. So no matter what you look like, what your rap ability is, what you, you know, what you sound like, with you, what you do all day, there's room for you at this table, because this table isn't about a specific person. Like it really opens up the appeal, I think. And in a way, it's hard to even. It's, it's hard to describe, but it, I think I think there's, there's an added benefit of giving people more room to buy into what you're doing,

because it is not bound to one person's face. And I guess that leads us to the doom bot aspect of this conversation. You're song about doom when he passed ends with you holding up this photograph, this prized photograph you have of MF doom, which you realize in real time in this song is not really him. There was an era. Right. There was a time when doom, you would go to a doom show and you would realize that it's another guy in the mask impersonating doom, which is a very funny abstract idea and not very funny. I imagine if you're in that crowd having paid money to see your favorite rapper,

“and it's clearly not him. What do you make of the doom bot scheme?”

So because of who I am in this, in this indie space, actually, no way more about that than I should. Okay. And I can't say everything I know about it, but I can't say this. Okay. I saw doom three times. I saw doom one time for real and two times for fake. Wow. That's a tough percentage. That's a 30% percentage. That's tough because two out of the three were paid for too.

So yeah. One time I paid and it was at him, I was real mad. Sure. I tell the story on a song that I have with Billy Woods, Moka, only and elucid.

It's on a Billy Woods and blackheads first album. I tell the story of going to the show.

This was a New Year's Eve show in LA.

This is how people were waiting to bring in the New Year with the house from one day to another.

“And he came out there. It was him and four other people. He never took the microwave from his face once.”

Like even when there was no music play between songs he kept the mic up to his mouth. Just to be sane and right. And the four dozer with him overdoved literally every bar. And it was just the DJ just playing doom songs. There was no no instrumental. It was just why he don't songs.

And so we all figured out the gig was up real soon. And everybody was real mad. They was real mad. They spent all that money and waited in line and bought expensive drinks to come. But by this false performance. Now my anger, my frustration at the time was informed by a thought of thinking.

Oh, this guy who's my favorite rapper thinks it's funny that a bunch of people spent money to see him. And he thinks that it's okay because he's a villain as his persona to send these fake people. And this is all a thing that he's just going to sit back and count his money and not really care about how his fans feel. Now what I've learned and again, I can't say everything I know about this. But I've learned that this was after he had gotten basically deported.

Right. Right. So there was a period of time and he had went on a European tour.

And he always knew that if he went on a European tour, there was a chance he was not going to be allowed back in the country.

Because he technically was not born here, even though he grew up here his whole life. So he knew that that was a chance. And he took that chance to do European tour and he came back and he wasn't allowed in the country. Now from that point forward, there were plenty of shows that were booked already and to be honest a few more that were booked knowing that he wasn't going to be able to do sure sure. But my experience of it retroactively softened once I understood that these were shows that he was not able to do and did not want to cancel because ultimately he was trying to feed his family still.

And that part I don't understand, I hated the packaging of it and I hated how he talked about it after the fact. Because it seemed mad disrespectful, but the more I found out about it, the more I began to understand. I still don't think it was a great idea, obviously. But I have a different perspective on it now than I did back then.

“Did that new year show like end in a riot or a riot?”

So that show was hosted by some underground LA legends, including some projects, but people I know Medusa was on the stage. I want to say Mike and nine and some other people were too. And they fed off the crowds anger and just freestyled the night away. They were incredible. Like they were able to sort of feel our anger.

They were angry too, like on behalf of rappers. Sure, they were upset that this guy just seemingly came and pulled a heist on everybody like that. They didn't even like being associated with that. So they took it upon himself to put on a real hardcore, long lasting, lyrical display that whole night to sort of overcompensate for the BS that we were all put through. Okay, well I'm glad to hear that. I'm relieved.

But just a final question, this is sort of related, like there's in the J. Dilah book, Dilah time, there's this incredible story about Dilah's funeral where MFDum stands up and says that he had a dream. That Dilah came to him in a dream and said that they should do a posthumous collaboration and that doom should keep most of the royalties. Like doom just says this in the middle of like a funeral or a wake or something. In addition to being like eccentric in a way that we associate with doom, like doom is hustling constantly.

Doom is wrapping to make money. You look at his catalog, like every album is on a different label. You know, it's a struggle to be a working rapper, even for somebody at his level.

“And as a working rapper yourself, like what did Doom teach you about how hard it is to do this for money?”

Well, you know, it's, and to be honest, it's harder now to do than it was when he reminds establishing that pathway.

But that is like, I think you keyed in on one of the most important lessons.

There was a legal reason to have an MF doom, a king, gitarah, a victim on mad villain, because technically these are all different artists, which can go on different labels.

So, you know, as was the standard in his era, like, you know, a label would want to sign you to a three, four or five album deal. So this was a way to be able to take those type of deals and still put out work through other means. And I think like that's, I mean, honestly, at this point, a lot of that sort of thing has softened, especially in any spaces where nobody's trying to lock you up like that, and people aren't really trying to be too restrictive about which, well, what you can or can do.

And you want to be respectful of the investment that these labels put into your, your naming, your likeness, considering they are like provided they are investing resources into you.

“But I think everybody, everybody's much more realistic now about how hard it is to make a living.”

And so if you're able to be as productive as an MF doom was in 2004, so like, I mean, I'm food, mad villain and Victor Vaughan all came out in the same year, which meant that, you know, the year previous he had to be tearing ass making records like, yes. If you can do that, then there's a lot more options. I mean, it's not that it becomes a magically easier to make money, but if the main vehicle is to put out work, then you got to work. Right. I know. And his, his approach, sort of taught a lot of us how we can make this work for us.

“What do you make of his legacy, you know, just a few years on from his desk, you know, there's a madville, there's an AI ad now with like, I think it's all caps.”

It's like a loop from a mad villainy song and it like, do you, is MF doom's reputation growing even more, you know, the longer we go on. And there's no one who can replace him, like, what do you see about how people are hearing him differently, possibly now versus even five years ago? It's interesting. MF doom is the only rapper that I listen to that my son and his friend's list, like the only one in that. And that includes me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's very funny. But I am sorry. Yeah, it is.

But that's, that's the, MF doom is in a rare air of indie rappers where I just talked to you about me hearing his first, my, my first experience with his singles in 1997.

I don't think that there's another artist I can think of who started their journey in 97 underground underground rapper started in 97 that is able to be able to reach these sort of heights and still be climbing.

“I think it's completely unprecedented. I think the iconography is a part of that. I think, you know, that, that level of symbology, the level of mystique.”

But it does all come back to the work though. It all comes back to the work. It all comes back to like an unconventional truly raw approach to beats and rhymes that other people kind of got close to or hinted at, but he went all the way there. And, and I think like, you know, for all the talk of of KMD, I'm not sure KMD could it did this. KMD was still very much operating within the structures of what was allowed right in MF doom didn't care. I've done a sample of beetles and turn that into the record level like y'all do some about it. You know, I'm saying like, no, the things he went through as a person put him in a situation where it was like all or nothing like so MF doom was completely uncompromising in his vision of what he felt like a rap song should sound like.

And a way that I don't think anybody else has ever really approached. Like there's, you know, I think there's there's some people who are pro sat with wraps, who have a pro sat with wraps and some people who have a pro sat with beats, but as a singular entity both I just don't think we've seen it.

Now he will be, he will be.

“Yeah, yes, I'm sorry to hear it. He'll come back around.”

I love that he has his own taste, okay, yes, if my if my musical self esteem dependent on my son enjoying my music. I'd be in a terrible state, terrible terrible state.

You're doing okay, you're you're managing.

I think so fight this. Thank you so much. Thank you.

“Thanks very much to our guests this week open my eagle.”

Thanks to our producers Olivia query Justin sales and Chris Sutton.

Additional production by Kevin Poolear animations and graphics by Chris Callaton. Additional art by Matt James and special thanks to Cole Kushner. And thanks to you for listening and watching.

“And now, please let's all go listen to all caps by Matt Villain.”

See you next week. But what I still want to tell you, you don't want to be a part of the studio. The masterwriter, Laptop, the soft, handy internet. It's a master's real-time. You can tell that you can do it.

You're a master, right? But you can't do that. You're a master, you're a master. You're a master, you're a master. And if you work, you'll be able to catch it.

That's right. You're a master. Hold your money to Rook. Now it costs just out for me.