CREDIT: Justin Mayer (@OldCity215)

Honestly, it doesn't even feel like there's a proper way to elegize an eccentric and extremely talented artist such as MF DOOM, who meant so much to so many of us for so many years for so many different reasons as truly unique as DOOM himself. So, what better way to pay tribute to The Man, The Myth, THE MASK himself than by speaking to those closest to him? With a heavy heart, I proudly present Shadows of Tomorrow; a new recurring column in tribute to DOOM in an effort to re-tell the tall tales, strange stories, and lesser-known tidbits of The Metal Face Villain himself. R.I.P. Daniel "MF DOOM" Dumile Thompson.

"DOOM broke the rules. While some of the greatest emcees were playfully comparing themselves to Ghost Rider or The Incredible Hulk, DOOM had one better. He didn't plan to passively reference, he would create a universe and rule it with an Iron Fist. With one snap of that metal fingered fist, he created an alternative dimension within Hip-Hop (Earth-808) donning the mask of the greatest super-villain. A mysterious genius, he would skillfully best the world's greatest swordsman on one record, then, send a faux-faced flunky to flagrantly fool his faithful followers in a following facade. The man, the artist, the real villain: watched the ensuing chaos—laughing maniacally."

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask and he'll tell you the truth"
- Oscar Wilde

- Justin Mayer (@oldcityphl)


"I think one of the most popular questions to ask a rapper is "who's in their Top Five? and if DOOM wasn't in my Top Five, then, he was definitely in my Top Six. There're so many rumors about like who the man was that it becomes very difficult to understand what was true because he was so influential to your "favorite rappers favorite rapper." One thing that is easily Google-able is that before he was DOOM, there was KMD, which is the wildest trip, if you remember them because you realize, at this point, that all three of them are deceased. I can remember being no more than eight or nine years old and being in the backseat of my cousin's soon-to-be baby daddy's hoopty and hearing tracks from artists like Jeru [The] Damaja, Wu-Tang, or KMD; he had a major effect on the Hip-Hop that I listened to. Fast-forward 10 to, I don't know, maybe, 12 years, you have Mos Def, who is another rapper that ends up in my Top Five in-and-out, who is studying the record with MF DOOM reciting the song "Rap [Snitch Knishes]" verbatim. He, later, or, maybe, it was even before, looks at the mask on the cover and says, "I understand you." This was the moment that I realized that I had to dig into this man's verses because I definitely thought that The Mighty Mos was my favorite rapper and it would appear that MF DOOM was his favorite rapper. With that said, I began to dig into the man, the myth, the legend that is MF DOOM."


"I did a lot of bouncing around in my own personal life. At a time, I'd be in Virginia, at another time, I'd be in New York, at another time, I'd be in Buffalo. Then, there was a time that I come back to Buffalo and talked about my favorite rapper with one of my friends and they made mention of MF DOOM being in Buffalo. I said, "f**k, I just missed him!" This friend of mine continued to tell me that it sucks, too, because this might have been the last time that I would have ever seen him in Buffalo because, apparently, someone had got him for his mask. I mean, this isn't your cookie-cutter emcee, this is someone who, at least, I considered in my own mind, to be, budding on probably one of the best rappers of all time, lyrically. That sh*t is f***ed up. I really couldn't believe this story. Also, I really don't even know if it's true. I, also, don't know if he ever made it back to Buffalo. This is in Buffalo, Broadway Joe's in the early 2000's, when the crack-era 90's was still doing down. All I know is I felt like I had been robbed of ever seeing someone in my Top Five perform in somewhere as inviting for Hip-Hop heads as Broadway Joe's. Now, mind you, I still don't know if that's a true story... but I still feel resentful and really want to know who that person is who gripped his mask, so I could slap the sh*t out of them."


"Fast-forward, probably, another 10 years since that incident, give-or-take. You have, probably, a good 15 to 20 dope emcees within the city of Buffalo, who are on their way to success. The one who, actually, makes it out and makes a "big mark" on the country in regarding Hip-Hop in its current state is Westside Gunn. In Buffalo, we couldn't have more pride than when West' finally clinching that feature with MF DOOM. In my own mind, I really thought it was wild because I felt that close. I had met Westside Gunn before and DOOM was one of my favorite rappers and, somehow, I felt like it could really happen for me somewhere in my future within the next, say two or three years, where I'd finally get that feature with someone in my Top Five."


"I'm still having a hard time dealing with his passing. However, I really think that it was a beautiful story that added to the overall mystery of the man to know that he may or may not have died one, on Halloween, and, two, that people kept that a secret until New Year's Eve. It could definitely be said that DOOM was such an influence on me that he, probably, shaped my writing style and it kills me that I don't have those types of verses to look forward to anymore."

- Trè Marsh (@tr38cho)