CREDIT: KARISSA KANESHIRO (@karissakaneshiro)

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.

"The difference between talent and genius. The significance of some artists' bodies of work cannot be measured or quantified by man-made instruments or hypotheses... it's like accurately guessing how many people on the planet see the same star in the night sky at the same time. If time wasnt the abstract construct we all already [know] it is... we might not be able to make the comparison that there are not only beings on this planet who appear to shine brighter than others... the "stars," if you will.. but, also, ones who appear to move across the celestial landscape of the night sky in a less predictable manner... like shooting stars. This ain't no actual Astronomy lesson, so I don't wanna get into how "shooting stars" ain't ACTUAL stars or nothin' like that..."


"I'm just speaking strictly metaphorically here. What if every second was 100 years somewhere else in The Universe... more than the average human lifespan on Earth? That star you see zip past in the night sky don't even stick around for a full second.. but you compare the impact that that shooting star had on you vs. seeing some regular sh*t, like Sirius or Andromeda or them super-poppin' sh*ts, like Polaris or Betelgeuse... like the STAR stars... compare that feeling to seeing that one METEOR disguised as a star that caught your attention [and] the impact it left on however many people caught it [and] multiply that sh*t by whatever unit of measurement is used to determine the nonlinear paths of MF's without any reciprocal slopes or parallels other than the ones they made..."


"The mysteries they created... the identities they assumed... the worlds they manipulated like balls of Play-Doh... and multiply that by 500 zillion [and] then divide it by porcupine to accurately calculate that sh*t. The positive or negative impacts of artists like JAY-Z or 2Pac or Eminem are lowkey quantifiable. We can guess... artists like #MFDOOM introduced the element of the unknown to a culture that was obsessed [with] knowing everything 'bout artists [and] being able to follow predictable linear A to B to C patterns [and] flipped all that sh*t upside down. [...] I think DOOM was just flat out a one of one... the first to do all types of things with his artistry that would be influential to all types of MF's who were influenced in all types of ways for longer than most artists tend to be influential for."


"He was the antithesis of super-stars like Hov [JAY-Z] or Eminem... you hardly ever saw his face, he had no hits or plaques, he had no Rihanna [collaborations]... yet he had just as much impact on Hip-Hop as either of 'em. If you removed his DNA from the culture... you would be wiping out whole a$$ rappers from the game. They would just disintegrate, like when Thanos snapped his fingers in Avengers: Infinity War. We lost a true fearless original. From the KMD days to the birth of the countless incarnations that manifested since... there won't ever be another. R.I.P. Daniel Dumile."

- BigGhostLimited (@bigghostltd)