Before he was MF DOOM, Daniel Dumile started his music career under the moniker Zev Love X and was part of the promising early ‘90’s rap group, KMD. But after a string of tragedies and setbacks, including the death of his brother and partner DJ Subroc, and the shelving of the group’s second album, “Black Bastards” over the controversial cover art, which led to him being dropped from the record label, Dumile disappeared from the music scene.
But he would eventually return years later with a new name and a new style, quickly becoming a cult favorite among hip-hop heads while also attracting a new generation of fans, all on his own terms.
DOOM died of health complications in 2020, with his death being announced months later by his family on New Year’s Eve. Now, S.H. Fernando aka SKIZ, a journalist and hip-hop historian who previously chronicled the rise of Wu-Tang Clan, has turned his focus onto DOOM with “The Chronicles of DOOM: Unraveling Rap’s Masked Iconoclast” to help fans better understand the struggles he endured and the success he achieved.
Ahead of a special event at Brooklyn Museum on October 31 that will celebrate the life and legacy of DOOM, Brooklyn Magazine sat down with SKIZ to discuss his biography. During our conversation, SKIZ made it clear that his book is an unauthorized biography and that DOOM’s estate was not involved in its creation. Still it is fascinating on multiple levels, from the humanizing of an almost mythical figure to the detailed backstory of the rap industry in the ‘90s and how it led to DOOM’s improbable comeback in the 2000s
“I’m coming to this as a fan of DOOM. I’m coming to this as a champion of the underground,” SKIZ says. “To me, [DOOM] epitomizes the underground. He epitomizes the independent spirit and that’s why I wrote the book.”
This interview has been edited for concision and clarity.
Why did you decide to focus on DOOM for the book?
He was one of the few artists who had a shot at success in the mainstream music industry and lost it. And then somehow he was able to come back and reinvent himself and become even bigger than before.
I had heard about his death just like everyone else on New Year’s Eve and immediately there was a whole bunch of podcasts and tributes to him. And I was kind of transfixed by all of it. I was just in utter shock because I’d followed his career since the days of KMD in the ‘90s. I remembered him as Zev Love X and back in that time, they were a very promising group. In May 1994, I was writing for a lot of hip-hop publications and I had just got the cassette advance of “Black Bastards” and I was like, “wow, this is a banging album. This is going to put these guys on a whole new level.” And then like four days later, it was announced that the album was not coming out. DOOM lost this deal and that’s when I lost track of him.
And it was only like the late ‘90s. I think it was maybe [hip-hop producer] Prince Paul who told me that Zev Love X had reinvented himself as MF DOOM, and it was completely different from what he was before.
What really struck me about him in this book is the recurring theme of DOOM being a working-class rapper, a voice for the working class. Why do you think he resonated with that class so much?
It was his work ethic, really. I think it was just his natural drive. He was someone who loved and respected the culture that he grew up under, and he just naturally participated in it. So at a time in his life when everything was stripped away from him, when he had nothing, he at least had that.
He had lost his brother, who was his partner. He’s already depressed. Then he loses his record deal. So he’s got no livelihood. He’s basically living back at his dad’s house doing nothing. But he wasn’t really doing nothing. He was still practicing his art and scheming in his mind. All you need is a pen and paper to write rhymes.
So how does your process work when you’re writing about the life of one of the most reclusive artists ever and really diving deep into some of the struggles DOOM went through in his life?
Well, I’ve been a journalist for 30-plus years, so I was trained to focus on facts. I was trained to get to the root of a story. So, in doing this book, the first thing that I had to do for myself was construct a timeline of his life and just kind of fill in the blanks to keep the story straight in my mind.
But human beings don’t live a nicely tailored life. It’s a messy existence. And DOOM was a very non-linear guy too. It’s not like everything proceeded nice and smooth. I do know a lot of the other journalists who interviewed him so I interviewed them and then I eventually spoke to family members. It was a long process doing interviews trying to figure out what people I wanted to talk to and who would talk to me.
I was also very cognizant of the fact that DOOM was a private person and didn’t want a lot of his personal information out there. So immediately I said, “I’m just going to deal with DOOM himself. I’m not going to talk about his kids or his family and stuff like that. Let’s keep it on the music.” And we were really expecting more great things out of him. And it’s like he was robbed, you know?
During your time writing this, was there anything that surprised you about DOOM that you didn’t realize before starting the research?
Oh, I was constantly surprised while writing this book. But I think the biggest surprise that I found out about DOOM was his connection to all of this esoteric information. He doesn’t really hit you over the head with it in his lyrics. He puts certain references in there. But talking to people who really knew him, he was really into all of that stuff: He was into crystals, he was into UFOs. He was into alternative health stuff. For most of his rhymes, humor is kind of the overarching theme. He kind of keeps it light and easy. But there are several songs where he will drop a little reference.
So after chronicling DOOM’s evolution from b-boy in the ‘80s and ‘90s to this legendary rapper and producer who continuously transcended genres, how do you see his legacy playing out over time?
Maybe 20, 30 years from now, DOOM will be considered among the greatest of all emcees. Maybe in the top 10 of all of hip-hop, and that’s saying a lot. There’s a ton of good emcees out there just in my era alone. Even though we’re not going to hear new music from him, he’s left a huge catalog behind and I don’t think people have tapped into that the way they need to. I tapped into it hardcore over these last three years and I still haven’t even gotten through much of it. I mean that’s the beauty of it. It’s like I could be going for a walk and all of a sudden, some lyrics come into my head, and I’m like, “oh, okay. that’s what he was talking about!” DOOM’s lyrics are like that.
I gotta ask: what’s your favorite MF DOOM line?
People always ask me that but you got to realize that I spent three years really devoted to listening to his music with the ear of a critic. So I have so many lyrics and stuff in my head and so many concepts. But obviously, one thing I love is on his track, “Doomsday”:
“Definition super villain/a killer who love children/One who is well-skilled in destruction, as well as building.”
To me that really captures DOOM. He’s this very complex anti-hero, a supervillain like Doctor Doom. In real life, he was a Black Man in America. And to America, he’s just the villain. But it just depends on your perspective, right? He could take something like a comic book character or a cartoon and show that there’s some relevance to it. That’s a real gift. That’s a real skill.
“Chronicles of DOOM” will be available to purchase everywhere on October 29. And you can catch SKIZ talk more about the book and DOOM’s life at the Brooklyn Museum on October 31.
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