OK it's official- with his dope new album Born Like This, MF Doom (now sans the MF, apparently) is now my favorite MC, beating out the likes of Biggie, Andre 3000, RZA, Chuck D, Nas, KRS-One, and a short list of others. His career is just untouchable and he has never sold out to gain mass appeal. His tight writing and woozy delivery set him apart now, yet he had a completely different flow in the early 90's group, KMD. Since then, his output under a number of pseudonyms and collaborations such as King Geedorah, Viktor Vaughn, Madvillian (W/Madlib), Dangerdoom (W/Danger Mouse), has quietly built up what I think is the most consistent body of work in all of hip hop in terms of quality (yeah even more than Ghostface Killah).
Born Like This is tight and succinct in it's execution, and shows off all of Doom's best qualities- his writing, his flow, his trippy sample-based interludes, but the star of the show is his touch as producer. The beats fit the rhymes perfectly as he weaves various tales of crime and ugliness often intoning a noirish, spy movie feel. Sampling ESG's "UFO" on "Yessir" was genious and I like the way he slows it down and pumps up the bass (definitely one you'll want to bump in your car). I'm also glad he used the "Styrax Gum" instrumental that he made for his Special Herbs series on "That's That."
The best track on this album is definitely "Cellz" which starts out with a sinister spoken word piece by one of my favorite authors, Charles Bukowski, about the violent ends that a society of greed will bring about and how we we're all born into it (hence the title of the album) and it's up to us if we want to change it or let it reduce us to "radiated men eating the flesh of radiated men." After the spoken word intro, Doom busts out a fat rhyme over the most epic of beats. Of of my favorite Doom tracks ever.
If you're new to MF Doom, the places to start are probably Operation: Doomsday and Madvillain's Madvilliany. Also, my opinion on all these rumors that he's hired impostors to do his live shows or that he's dead or whatever is that they're probably false (uh hopefully about the death thing) or of his own fabrication to serve his larger than life legend as the king of the underground. Either way it doesn't devalue his music at all, it anything it makes him slightly more interesting.
Here are some samples (Right Click To Save you know the drill) but this is definitely an album that's worth the money so buy it!
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