The countless pseudonyms, the many live appearance no-shows, and the fact he chose to obscure his face with a metal gladiator mask for the best part of 25 years, certainly paint a particular image. The perception of DOOM, real name Daniel Dumile, as a mysterious and evasive figure hasn’t come from thin air, and the man himself tended to that fire with jubilant glee. And with the outpouring of love and condolences from across the wider music world comes the curiosity of those who are yet to immerse themselves in the strange world of DOOM: who is this man in the mask and where possibly to begin? Here we hope to offer a brief introduction to some of his finest work to those of you asking those very questions. The death of an artist draws a line in the sand, and we for the first time reflect on the collected works as a finite ecosystem, and what they have come to represent both personally and in the broader musical landscape. As a fan, this is of course a part of a continuous process, shaped and coloured by album cycles, initial points of exposure, developments in taste and personal factors. As the tragic passing of underground hip hop icon MF DOOM draws an endpoint on a prolific and creatively unparalleled career, the urge to make sense of his somewhat labyrinthine back catalogue grows stronger than ever.
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