Lyrically, MF Doom complemented his virtuosic flow and brilliant wordplay with samples of cartoon characters like Dr. Before Kanye West rode soul samples to superstardom on The College Dropout, MF Doom created complex lo-fi soundscapes that mixed soul and hip-hop samples on his debut, Operation: Doomsday. While MF Doom was compelling as a character, his music is what would distinguish him as one of hip-hop’s greatest artists. Dumile was merely one of several people who played the role of MF Doom, and MF Doom was only one of several characters created by Dumile, as he would also release albums under the names King Geedorah and Viktor Vaughn. Doom: a writer who created a character to express his worldview abstractly. Daniel Dumile was not MF Doom himself as much as he was to MF Doom who Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were to Dr. In addition to directly hiding his identity by wearing a mask and rarely doing interviews, Dumile also maintained a significant level of separation between himself and MF Doom. While many hip-hop artists at the time found success by being transparent with their audiences and embracing their histories, MF Doom shrouded himself in mystery. Stage names have always been commonplace in hip-hop, but few pushed the boundaries of their persona as a medium of expression as much as Dumile did with MF Doom. Daniel Dumile had nothing to identify with except evil itself, so he created a character for himself that would become a real-life hip-hop supervillain.
He still wanted to rap, but deep down, he also wanted revenge on the music industry. He searched his past for a positive outlook on the world, but he found nothing. He no longer believed in comic book tales of good triumphing over evil. He had been beaten down relentlessly by a merciless world. After years of real-life struggles, Dumile’s childlike innocence was gone. As a child, Dumile, interested in comic books and DJing, earned the nickname “Doom,” a play on his last name and an homage to the comic book character Dr. When Dumile eventually returned to hip-hop in the late ’90s, he permanently dropped the moniker and wore a mask, seldom showing his face again.
The only thing Dumile had left to lose was his identity … but he lost that too. He was towered over by the heroes of New York hip-hop who climbed the mountain before Dumile had even put his climbing boots on. As New York’s hip-hop scene exploded in popularity in the ’90s and elevated countless homegrown rappers from inner-city struggles to unprecedented levels of fame, Dumile, once on the verge of becoming rap’s next hometown hero, was relegated to a supporting role. Dumile spent the next several years of his life struggling and at times homeless in both New York and Atlanta. Dumile would eventually complete the album by himself, but before it was released, he was dropped from his label due to the album’s controversial artwork, and the release was canceled. In the early ’90s, he found success as a rapper under the name Zev Love X, but in 1993, Daniel’s brother and musical partner Dingilizwe (aka DJ Subroc) passed away in a car accident shortly before the two were set to release their second album together.