- Goodnight boys, pew pew! And we're opening up the kitchen again to talk about the bear season three, returning to Hulu on June 27th. The Midnight Boys are taking over prestige TV. How you feeling, Cousin? - Cousin! New restaurant, new takes, new ups. - That's what I'm talking about. Make sure you plug in to the Prestige TV feed. Van and I will be back. TV feed, then and I will be. Talking about every single episode of The Bear. That's June 27th on the Prestige TV feed. From Spotify and The Ringer, this is Dissect, long-form musical analysis broken into short, digestible episodes. This is the final episode of our season-long dissection of MF Doom. I'm your host, Chris.

Included our two-part survey of MF Doom's Mmfood, released just eight months after Madvillain. In November of 2004. Mmmfood capped off a historic year in which Doom put out two classic projects, an incredibly rare few Not only in hip-hop, but any genre. Doom rode this momentum into the following year, releasing Yet another acclaimed album in 2005's The Mouse and the Mask, a collab project with producer Danger Mouse and Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Him. 2005 also saw Doomline to feature on the Gorillaz song November Has Come off their album Demon Days, which reached number one in a handful of countries around the world. World.

Advillain, Mmfood, Danger Doom and this Gorillaz feature, the years 2004 and 2005, cemented Doom's reputation as a cult icon. He wasn't a housewife. But he had earned the now cliched title of Your Favorite Rapper's Favorite Rapper and it's this two-year period that's historically viewed as Doom's unassailable prime. Following this period, Doom's output reached a near standstill, especially considering how prolific he'd been in the years prior. Between 2006 and 2008, Doom featured a a handful of songs from mostly underground artists, produced four tracks on Ghostface Killah's 2006 album Fishscale, and released a box set of his Special Herbs instrumental albums. In conversation with Jeff Mao, Doom explained this time of limited output. Put. You know, I was still doing work, but I kind of laid off it a little bit just to concentrate on family and like, you know, other children on the way and you know, I just kind of took some time off really for family and like, just to just to

get away from it for a second. It started being like where, you know, I don't necessarily want to do one thing for too long. It gets to where it gets boring and kind of overwhelming and you want to take a step back and just reflect. So it was really like that kind of thing, you know, and it comes to a point where if I... I need to get more information. I study and to give the information I need information. I would do things like... Know, just leave it alone for a second and just observe the world. And, you know, so I have more things to say. I think a lot of times people expect us to just be constantly. Talking nigga. I'm the kind of cat I'll lay back. You know what I mean? The conversation ain't always about what I gotta say. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes it's time to listen. So that was more like the listening time, you know what I mean? When Doom finally reemerged four years after his last full-length project, it would be to present what would ultimately become his third and final album released under the solo Doom moniker, 2009's Born Like Me.

Like this. Born Like This was released on Lex Records on March 24, 2009. Produced mostly by Doom himself, the album also includes production by Madlib, J Dilla, Jake One, and Mr. Chop. Conceptually, Born Like This continues the Episodic lore of the MF Doom character. However, with this release, Daniel chose to drop the MF from the name and publish the record as Doom. When asked about the name change and the general arc of the character across the Doom solo projects, Daniel

responded quote on Operation Doomsday the way I presented it was as an introduction from the character from an outside point of view way outside there's this guy That everybody is calling the supervillain. You hardly know anything about him, so you're hearing things, and you gradually get introduced to him. What he puts out as propaganda, what he shows outwardly. Then gradually the food record comes out. At that point, you're kind of familiar with the dictatorship side of the character, more serious-like, the take over the game conquer aspect of him. Then you get to the oh he's not such a bad guy. They call him the villain but now we get to know him and he seems cool. What's so villainous about this guy? So with Born Like This, The third installment in the trilogy, there's even a closer, more candid look. You already know him. He's your man now, so you don't call him M.F. Doom every time, you call him Doom now. That's the reason for the name change. You get into the mind of the character like that's your homeboy. It's because of this familiarity that Born Like This relies much less on cartoon samples than Doom's previous work, as the character and world have different themes.

Already been so well established. This left for him to incorporate a new literary influence in German-American writer Charles Bukowski whose 1992 poem Sora We inspired the title of the album. An excerpt of this poem, read by Bukowski himself, is also sampled on Born Like This's 10th-track album. Cells. Annual dumélé in the musical world. Charles Bukowski was a prolific underground writer who became a cult hero among grassroots literary circles. As we just heard in DinosaurAwee, his work controversially centered the depravity of urban life and survival in a corrupted American society.

He even had an alter ego named Henry Chinaski, an alcoholic womanizer some might consider somewhat villainous. Doom undoubtedly viewed Bukowski as a creative kindred spirit, telling HipHopDX, quote, I watched a documentary about that dude called 'Born Into This.' He really inspired me. How he just did his craft without worrying about standards. There's no standards to what we do. We just do it. Born like this. That's why I chose that as the title. Writers are born and we're not doing it like, Yeah, I think I'll be a writer today. We can't do it like that. Can't help it. If I had another job, if I was a gardener or a city worker, I would and doing my little thing. Doom also spoke about Bukowski's influence with Nurtorius saying, His writing style would always catch me off guard. I'd be reading and I think I know where he's going and he'll just pull a left and spin everything. Up. His stuff can be so weird it makes me feel normal. I think I can't be weirder than this guy which is cool because once you realize what the extremes are...

You can do anything. There's perhaps no better example of Bukowski's influence on- To push the boundaries of his own prosaic weirdness, then Born Like This is 14th track, That's That. And Doom's extensive catalog. That's That might be as most technically adept, rich as it is with incredibly rhyme-dense wordplay, absurdist imagery, and inventive metaphors. The beat for That's That first appeared as a track titled The Styrax Gum on Doom's 2002 Metal Fingers instrumental album, Special Herbs, Volume 3.

The beat relies heavily on a sample pulled from Galt McDermott's 1969 track Princess Gika from the Woman is Sweeter soundtrack. The sample is sped up and backed by what appears to be an original drum beat created from sampled drum sounds. Time getting busy on this elegant instrumental, kicking off his hyper dense flow just a half beat after the opening.

Kick drum. Doom begins his verse Already woke, spared a joke, barely spoke, rarely smoked, stared at folks when properly provoked, mirror broke. Obviously the rhyme scheme here is incredibly dense as Doom the lyrical technician adheres to a three syllable scheme in which 23 out of the 23 syllables are Syllables rhyme. This syllabic onslaught sustains in the next lines. Here share a strawberry morning, gone and more important spawning, torn in Poor men sworn in, Cornish hens switching positions, auditioning morticians sought in a vision, ignoring prison. The rhyming remains relentless here in this passage 46 out of the 48 syllables rhyme.

The abstraction of the imagery thus far might make some suspicious as to whether it contains any meaning at all, but if there's anything we've learned this season, it's that even if Doom's most bizarre lyrical moments, there's almost always a coherent theme or motif being developed. And that's certainly the case here, even though it takes a little effort to parse out. Next clue comes in the phrase poor men sworn in. This implies someone taking an oath, which usually denotes the death of a man. Notes military, government, or courthouse. Wrote this song in the mid to late 2000s when the US was entrenched in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. With this context, we can revisit the beginning of the verse where Doom seems to Damaged, emotionless military veteran. Already woke might imply this person has woken up early, before most people.

Perhaps a carryover from the early rises in the military. It could also imply that they hadn't slept at all. Rather, they were getting out of bed after another sleepless night. Spared a joke, barely spoke, rarely smoke denotes a humorless person who doesn't talk or indulge in pleasure, while stared at folks when properly provoked suggests someone who vacantly stares when triggered, perhaps a sign of a flashback, a common symptom of PTSD. Mirror broke implies this person has abandoned Care, or even lost all sense of self. Their identity and fundamental understanding of who they are has been fractured, perhaps beyond repair. This extends into the line Gone, and more important, spawning. Torn in, poor men sworn in. Spawn is typically used to describe the production of offspring in large numbers, thus more important spawning paired with gone and poor men sworn in feels like a critique of the military's view of these soldiers. These poor young men are treated like farm animals, bred in mass, enlisted, and led to the slaughter.

This subtle animal motif is made more obvious in the next line. Cornish hens switching positions, auditioning morticians. This is one of Doom's more potent analogies, as Cornish hens are a specific breed of chicken that are smaller and must be slaughtered before 5 weeks of age. So when Doom says these Cornish hens are switching positions, I'd just say that they are a different breed of chicken. So when Doom says these Cornish hens are switching positions, I'd just say that they are a different Petitioning morticians, it appears he's describing the short lifespan of these enlisted young men who switched from civilian to soldier from life to death after being sworn in. In 2009, Doom was asked specifically about this Cornish hens line and he chose to focus On the meaning, but the effect of using unfamiliar language and the euphony or oral pleasure of pairing certain words together. Weird words count. You want to have things that will tickle the ear. Words that people might not hear as often. Things that sound funny to make you think a little more. Words that might be decades old or from hundreds of years ago or things that were made up that week. It's all about how many rhymes you can fit together in a short period of time.

That can make sense to the listener. Doom extends the farm animal motif by mentioning a cow in the next line, Ignoramus's 'enlist and sound dumb,' 'found him, drown, and cows dung,' 'crowns flung.' This seems to depict soldiers dying unceremoniously in a field, lying face down in a pile of shit. Crowns flung implies the literal crowns of their heads having been blown off. It's a sobering image.

But one grounded in the gruesome and tragic reality of war. Doom continues the verse rings a tinker bell, sing for things that's frail as a fingernail. This seems to play off the phrase that rings a bell, which denotes something vaguely familiar. Tinkerbell, of course, is the fairy from

Disney's Peter Pan. She is small or frail, and in reality, she doesn't actually exist. These attributes are what bind the reference to the next part of the line, sings for things that's frail as a fingernail. This feels like a critique of those who praise something that is flimsy or false, that gives the appearance or illusion of something substantial or meaningful, but ultimately crumbles under scrutiny. If we're following Doom's critique of the American military, it's possible he's referring to the false rationales used to justify the Middle Eastern Wars, things like patriotism and defending freedom. These concepts and their appeal to certain personality types are manipulated and exploited to send young men to war, where they may end up face down and cows down. It recalls the sentiments of Doom's most overtly political song, Strange Ways from Madvillain. Recall it was there he rapped, They pray four times a day, they pray five. Who weighs is strange when it's time to survive. Some will go of their own free will to die, others take them with you when they blow sky high.

All you get is lost children. Doom exposes the petty differences used to justify war, which in the end is really just an attempt to rationalize mass death. This idea of lost children from strange ways might reveal the intended idea behind Doom's Tinkerbell reference, as Peter Pan was an eternal boy, a boy who never grew up. He was also the captain of the Lost Boys, who were also eternal children. Chance Doom is playing off this idea of the eternal child to refer to those lost children of war, those poor young... Man sworn in and sent to die, thus never having a chance to grow up. Doom then continues that's that by pivoting to another system of entrapment, prison. He raps Bring a scale, stale ginger lingers, seven figures in vigor, and we're fresh from out the jail alpha male sickest ninja injury the century inter plea the rhyme

The density is still insane here, with Doom ignoring any standard N rhymes in exchange for quick, back to back, constantly pivoting rhymes like scale, stale, ginger, linger, figures and vigor, N-word, ninja, and injury, century. The scheme is almost kaleidoscopic. These hyper rhymes dazzle and swirl in and out of focus, yet the overall impression is one of wondrous prosaic beauty. As far as meaning, the mention of a Scale, and being invigorated or motivated by seven figures or millions of dollars seems to imply drug dealing. Since Doom says N-word fresh from out the jail, it's possible this blackmail began dealing drugs as soon as he was released, perhaps returning to what got him sent to place. Being a ninja's go-to weapon, it appears Doom is implying someone was stabbed. Following this with Enter plea seems to suggest this person is

turning to jail, denoting an endless cycle of entrapment. Juxtaposing war and prison is something Doom also did in strange ways. If you recall, verse one centered a low-level drug dealer who was targeted by police and arrested, while verse two centered the military, as we discussed a moment ago. It seems clear Doom viewed these systems as intertwined, both corrupt apparatuses serving a corrupt government carrying out a corrupt agenda. It's a perspective that Recalls the critiques of America in Bukowski's poem we heard earlier, which Dumes said inspired the general tenor of Born Like This. Bukowski kind of sets the tone for the record, being that we're living in what he was kind of describing. Reaching for the worst description based on what he saw us heading to, but it happened, and that made me go, 'Wow, that's ill, kind of prophetic words.' Doom's stream of consciousness then leads him to a common target, corrupt, inferior emcees. He raps, Lends sympathy to limp-wrist, simple Simon Ryman MCs. Along with the hyperdense rung,

this line shines in its alliteration. Lend and limp, wrist and rhyme and sympathy simple Simon and Em sees. With Simple Simon being a children's nursery rhyme, Doom cleverly dismisses these rappers' lyrics as being elementary. The fact he does this in a line as complex and rhyme-heavy as this one drives the point home further, displaying just how wide the gap between them truly is. The long double E sound in MCs then becomes the central rhyme in the next handful of lines, where literally every syllable has a rhyme. He raps Trees is free, please leave a key. These meager fleas, he's the breeze, and she's the bee's knees for she's. G's of G's. There's some clever wordplay in Trees is free, please leave a key, as it appears Doom is requesting a tip in the form of marijuana, which trees is slang for. Thus, the key in please leave a key is not a key that unlocks a door, but rather a key

Or kilogram of wheat. These meager fleas, he's the breeze, seems to be another insult aimed at the inferior rapper, who poses as much of a threat to doom as fleas and a light breeze. The bee's knees is an idiom that means excellent, so when said as a description of a woman, doom is claiming she's the best, probably in reference to her looks. Now we're just shy of halfway through Doom's single extended verse on the track, so now's a good time to check in on the rhyming stats. To this point, Doom has now wrapped a total of 185 syllables and 100 syllables. Of those syllables rhyme. That's an absurd 96%. And as the verse continues... Doom will sustain this pace while also increasing the amount of entendres and references including the extremely rare quadruple entendre. That's right after the break. Welcome back to Dissect. Before the break we marveled at the incredible technical achievement of That's That where 96% of its

Syllables have rhymed so far. We left off with Doom rhyming B's knees for she's G's of G's and he'll continue this emphasis of the long double E sound while simultaneously introducing... Secondary rhyme scheme. Doom continues the verse seize property, shopper sprees, chop the cheese, drop the Greece to stop diseases. It appears doom is boasting here.

First about wealth, as seize property, shopper or shopping sprees, and chop the cheese or cash all have to do with the acquisition of material goods or money. With grease associated with the phrase hotter than fish grease, Doom's drop the grease to stop diseases seems to be a clever way to reference dropping his hot rhymes, which have the power to cure diseases or eliminate wack MCs as if they are viruses. Notice here that diseases doesn't quite fit the rhyme scheme perfectly, while the middle syllable e does fit. The scheme. The first duh and the last iz doesn't. If it were any other song, this wouldn't be a big deal, but Doom is clearly attempting to rhyme as many syllables as possible in this verse, so he incorporates the uh and iz sound in the following phrase gee, whiz, paw. Both gee, whiz and paw are old. Timey phrases which leads to the the Kumbaya. Notice how pa or grandpa from previous line is now followed by a reference to grandma completing the pair. Kumbaya is an old...

African American spiritual that saw a resurgence in popularity during the folk revival movement in the late 50s. A song your grandma probably sung, hence the line doom rock grandma like the kumbaya. How grandma is a homophone for grammar. So Doom is also boasting about his extraordinary command of language in this verse, which as we pointed out... Has rhymed 96% of its syllables so far. And the cherry on top is that this boast itself is executed in a homophone-based double entendre, only further proving his point. The grandma-grandpa motif pivots a generation in the next line. Mama was a ho-hopper. Papa was a Rolling Stone star like Obama. A ho-hopper is a promiscuous person that sleeps around while a... Rolling Stone is a womanizer or someone who moves around a lot, so it appears that Mama and Papa were kindred spirits in this way. The song Papa Was a Rolling Stone made famous by The Temptations in 1972 as well as the long

standing magazine Rolling Stone, who in 2008 featured President Barack Obama on its cover twice in the same year, hence Dooms a Rolling Stone star like Obama. So for those keeping track Rolling Stone in this line is a triple entendre denoting a promiscuous man, the Temptation song, and the magazine. Also notice how Rock from Doom Rock Grandma now becomes a stone in Rolling Stone. The Obama thread continues in the next line. Pull a card like oDrama. oDrama is a shortening of Obama drama which was used to refer to the During the 2008 election cycle. To pull someone's card meets to call them out on their bullshit, so Doom could be dissing the whole American election process in general. Next phrase civil liberties followed by the memorable and completely rhymed these little titties abilities riddle me middle C middle C here is a quadruple entendre it most obviously refers to the key

A note on the piano known as middle C but given the reference to small breasts in this line C also denotes bra size. C cups aren't generally considered small but Doom is obviously stretching the definition a little to fit his scheme. The explosion heard directly after middle C adds more layers to the line and really exposes the true genius of Doom's theatrical wordplay. In the Looney Tunes Cartoon universe does a recurring gag in which a bad guy character wires an explosive to a piano that is triggered when Middle C is played. The good guy character is then baited the song All Those Endearing Young Charms, which ends on a middle C. However, The Good Guy inevitably plays The wrong final note multiple times and the frustrated bad guy comes rushing over to play it correctly, of course, setting off the bomb in his own face.

So Doom's middle C refers to the piano key, a bra, and the Looney Tunes gag. The fourth layer is revealed when we realize that notes on the piano are assigned numbers based on what octave of the piano they are found in. Specifically middle C is part of the piano's fourth octave. So it's commonly known as C4. And C4 is the name of the most common plastic explosive, which of course aligns perfectly with the explosion heard directly after Doom says Middle C. And if that's not enough to impress you, consider the fact that… The explosion and scream heard in this moment is sampled from the video game series called

♪ MC erectile hysterectomy ♪ ♪ Let's go on removal of the bowels ♪ ♪ Foul technically ♪ ♪ Don't expect to see the recipe ♪ ♪ Until we receive the check ♪ ♪ As well as the collection fee ♪ ♪ More erect than section Z ♪ ♪ What you expect to get for free ♪ ♪ Shit from me, history ♪ ♪ The key, plucked it off the mayor ♪ ♪ Chucked it in the old tar pit ♪ ♪ Off La Brea player ♪ ♪ They say he's gone too far ♪ ♪ Duma catch him after Duma on cue ♪ ♪ Locker ♪ ♪ Do what you gotta do ♪ ♪ Grrr, the rumors are not true ♪ ♪ Got two ma, no prob ♪ ♪ Got the job, hot bar, heart throb ♪ ♪ Scott's got the bar with cotton swab ♪ ♪ Dart lob, baker, cake sweet ♪ ♪ Jamaica trading treats on the beach ♪ ♪ Make us eat till it feeds me ♪ - Doom continues the verse, giving MC erectile hysterectomy. Me lecture on the removal of the bowels foul technically a hysterectomy is the removal of the uterus so doom appears

be saying he's going to remove whack MC's rectums. In other words, he's rapping their asses off. Playing off this medical motif, Doom compares his raps to a doctor's lecture, meaning other MCs need to be taking notes. However, Doom makes clear these gems aren't free as he spends the next four bars telling us he doesn't work pro bono. Don't expect to see the recipe until we receive the check as well as the collection fee. More rec than section Z. What you expect to get for free. Shit from me. History. Doom cites the 80s video game series Section Z. The goal of this game is to destroy an alien spacecraft, which Doom compares to him destroying the mic.

He then continues, The key, plucked it off the mayor, chucked it in the old tar pit off La Brea player. It's a random act of absurd villainy. Doom apparently steals the key to the city of Los Angeles from the mayor and tosses it into the active, paleontological site known as the La Brea Tar Pits, where natural asphalt or tar seeps from the ground, forming tar pools. Doom then raps, They say he's gone too far. Doom will catch him after Jamaa on cue. Laka. Jammah is a Muslim service that takes place every Friday at noon. Doom going out... Someone directly after paying their respects to God is an example of him going too far. He punctuates this scenario by screaming laca. Might be an abbreviation of the exclamatory Boom Shakalaka, insinuating that he indeed took out his target after Jamaa. He doubled his target by a total of $2.5 million. He was also a Down on this rapping do what you gotta do before belting out another exclamatory grah.

The remainder of the verse seems to detail Doom's sexual encounter with a woman, though it's extremely coded until the final line. He raps, The rumors are not true. Got two ma. No prob. Got the job. Hot bod. Heartless. After Doom denies rumors about him, Got to ma might be a play on the phrase Look ma, no hands. Where one rides a bike with two hands in the air. It's not entirely clear to me what Doom is talking about, but given the context of what's to come in this story, there is a possibility he's talking about having two testicles, despite the rumors about him having only one. In any case, the woman seems to believe him, since it was no prob and he got the job or blowjob from this hot bod heartthrob. Then says scotch guard the bar with cotton swabs, dart lob. Scotch guarding a bar would mean to seal it in order to protect it from spills, and dart lob evokes shooting darts at said bar. Within the sexual story though, it would appear that the woman is

cleaning up after Doom finishes shooting his dart or climaxing. He then ends the story rapping Bake a cake, sweet, Jamaica trade and treats on the beach. Maker skeet teller feeds me. The surface level play here is on Jamaican black cakes and eating desserts on the beach. However, baking a cake is sometimes used as slang for having sex and it appears Doom And this Jamaican woman exchange sexual favors on the beach, where Doom made her orgasm so much that her body contorted to the point that her feet touched together. Doom ends the song with his affably bad singing and

Interpolating Michael Jackson's I Wanna Be Where You Are. While Doom is definitely interpolating this Jackson song, it's It's possible he's also nodding to the rapper Grand Pouba, best known for his work in Brand Nubian, a hip hop group that were label mates with KMD and even featured on KMD's first album. On his 2000 song I Like It, I Wanna Be Where You Are, And Pouba interpolates the same Michael Jackson song. And interpolation at the end of That's That. And he began by explaining that it's not unique to him, that it's actually somewhat a whole other thing.

Historical tradition shared among emcees. Now like Graham's In Puma, Doom flips a few of Jackson's original lyrics, changing the meaning from being missed by a girl to being missed by his fans, likely referring to his three year absence leading up to Born Like This. He sings, Can it be I stayed away too long? Did you miss these rhymes when I was gone? As you listen to these crazy tracks, check them stats, then you'll know where I've Matt and that's that. and the stats back it up. It could be he's referring to album sales or chart placement, but he could also be nodding to the lyrical stats of what he just delivered on the album. That's that, where a grand total of 343 out of 384 syllables rhyme, an astonishing

90%. This level of sustained technical mastery is incredibly rare and almost impossible to pull off tastefully. Thus when Doom stamps this lyrical master class with the conclusive idiom And that's that implying that there's no debate when it comes to who's the greatest MC, it's hard to disagree with him. In all, That's that stands as an apogee in the vast discography of MF Doom. From its hyper dense rhyme schemes, beautiful u- symphony, stream of consciousness, flow of themes, wit, humor, wordplay, entendres, and amazingly bad singing. The song is a complete showcase of the idiosyncratic features that have come to define the villain's Neek style. It's a literary achievement authored by a writer who spent a lifetime dedicated to his craft. An artist born like this. Born to write. Born to rap. To create.

You'll never stop me! You're dead! You're not dead! No! Born Like This would alter be Doom's final solo project, capping off an episodic trilogy that succinctly captures Doom's And conceptual maturation across time, from the raw, sometimes sentimental origin story villainy of Operation Doomsday, to the witty and playful conceptual nature of Mmmfood, to the darker, more mature Born Like This. Now, Around the time of Born Like This, Daniel would add a significant layer in MF Doom lore through an inventive, controversial series of performance art pieces that were billed as Doom concerts. Rather than showing up to perform himself, Daniel would add a significant layer in MF Doom lore through an inventive, controversial series of performance art pieces that were Would hire someone to wear the Doom mask and take the stage in his place. These actors came to be known as Doombots, a name and concept that can actually be traced back to the Marvel Comics doctor Doom, who often employed robotic duplicates named Doombots to throw off his enemies.

Understandably, MF Doom's imposter pranks didn't always go over well with the live audience, who of course came to the show expecting to see the show. Daniel Dumoulin playing the part of Doom and instead saw a lip syncing stranger in a mask who often didn't even resemble D'Omalais himself. When Daniel began doing interviews promoting Born Like This, he was often questioned about Bots at his shows. In 2009 he told HipHopDX quote, I liken it to this. I'm a director as well as a writer. I choose different characters. I choose their direction and where I want to put them. So who I choose to put as the character is up to me. The character that I hired, he got paid for it. There's no imposter. Dx pushed back slightly here saying that fans are there to see Daniel

to which Daniel responded, That's what they're coming to see? Me as the character? When I go to a show, I'm going to hear the music. I'm not going to see no particular person. That are coming to see me as a physical person, I can switch the actor anytime. I'm not going to play the part of that character every time. Like how actors changed throughout the Batman series, where it was George Clooney and then it switched to like five other actors. People need to think outside the box. Hip-hop is not just what you expect it to be. This is a growing genre. It's a creative field. I'm the writer It's a show that's where it gets twisted in hip-hop. It's all visual people want to go see the guy With the big chain who's bragging about all these cars he has. That's where it gets twisted. This is music. Technology makes it possible for me to still do music and not have to be at any particular place. I'm using all of that. I'm using every aspect at my disposal to project my creative thoughts. Either people are gonna get it or they're not.

The creative limitations placed on artists working within a specific genre. Clearly Daniel was attempting to take hip hop somewhere it had never been, to expand Or eliminate the so-called boundaries of the genre, something he'd been trying to do since the MFDoom character's inception. In the first episode of this season, we laid out

the foundational ideas embedded in the character, most potent of which is M.F. Doom's iconic mask, a symbol of artistic integrity intended to refocus the audience's attention on the art, not the artist, on the music, not the musician. While the DoomBots may have been his most extreme iteration of this core principle, the concept is merely an extension of what Doom was trying to do his entire career, which was to challenge and disrupt the state of hip-hop. Daniel considered this his duty as an artist. He told Wax Poetics, For people who are attracted to hip-hop music, it's our job to spark their thoughts, to make them say, 'What the fuck is he saying that for? Why is he doing that?' Then when they find out it's just a character, it's a mind-opening thing. Plus the temptation to just fuck with people's heads like that, I just can't resist. It just goes to show, a lot of people don't know what hip-hop is.

People need to be snapped out of it. That's my choosing as an artist, and it's their choosing to criticize it too. But that's my other job, to snap people out of it. In the years following 2009's Born Like This, Doom's output would become exclusively collaborative. First there was 2012's Keys to the Cuff with producer/rapper Gennaro Jarrell. Released under the name JJ Doom. ♪ Like the wifey ♪ In 2014, Doom produced an entire album for up-and-coming MC Bishop Nuru, a joint release dubbed Naruvian Doom. It would be another four years until Doom's next project, Zarface meets Metalface, a 2018

In collaboration with underground supergroup Zarface, whose members include Wu Tang's inspected deck, 7L, and Esoteric. And the world. By the announcement of Daniel Duhamel's sudden death, which we later learned was caused by a rare reaction to a blood pressure medication. While his untimely Death was announced on New Year's Eve 2020. Dumoulin had actually passed two months prior on October 31st, Halloween, the day of the mask, proving the universe may have a sense of humor as twisted and ironic.

As the villain himself. It feels impossible to convey the impact Daniel Dumoulin continues to have on the world. His influence, of course, is felt in the music of many, but equally impactful is what Dumoulin stood for, what his story has come to represent. Once cast aside by the music of many, he is

Industry after the tragedy of losing his brother, Daniel was the oddball innovator who ultimately found success on his own terms, never compromising his weirdness, standing by his artistic principles to the very end. I think back to the beginning of this season, to our analysis of Operation Doomsday, the album that introduced MF Doom to the world. Recall in that final stretch of the album, Daniel takes the villain's mask off and we hear from the author directly, speaking from his heart. It's first heard in the final verse of Question Mark, a moving, heartfelt letter to his late brother, It's here that Daniel promises his brother to carry out the creative plans the two had made together.

The next video. To his audience. Do yourself a favor. Do yourself. This motto of fearless independence, of unfettered authenticity was the foundational principle of the MF Doom character from the Very start. And it's this very motto that Daniel Dumoulin himself lived out to the very end. Evident in his imaginative, multidimensional musical universe, his beautifully bizarre characters and wide-ranging collaborations, Daniel always did him. He kept his promise to his brother. He executed the plan to produce.

Perfection, and the mask that Daniel wore lives on as an enduring symbol of his core message of artistic and personal integrity. Daniel Dumoulin has passed on. The world he built and the characters he created are immortal, much like the comic books that inspired him. Because villains never really die. And the mask that Daniel left behind is for all of us to wear. Daniel was always adamant about this. Ademant that Doom was never about him. Miss about doing you. You know, villain represents anybody. Anybody in here could wear the mask and be a villain, male, Any race, so-called race, you know what I mean? It's about where you're coming from and from your heart. You know what I'm saying? What is the message? What you got to say? A wise man once said, Do you. That's what he told me, that nigga said. You know what I mean? Yo, do you.

That was like the wisest statement I heard out of any book and anything I ever read. Do you, be yourself and it's a That's the best thing you can do for anything that surrounds you. Now I want to end this season by reading one last quote from Daniel himself. It was back in 2009 when he was asked about how he continues to deal with his brother Subrok's passing. Not only is his response beautiful and insightful, it also has a lot of interesting and inspiring

also offers us a way of thinking about Daniel's own passing today. He said, Anytime you lose a family member, there's a grieving period. But it's really no different. It's just a different realm, just a different form of communication. We're all going to go to that realm eventually. As long as you know that, you can still know how to communicate with them. They're not gone, you just can't see them with the naked eye. The naked eye only picks up a certain spectrum of light. What else don't we see? What side are we on? Maybe that's the right side and we're gone. Connections never break. Energy can never be created or destroyed. Anything that it changes to is just change. If you know how to tune into it, it's the same thing. So to me, any of my brothers that are on the other side of the spectrum, they're all

I can still tune into them. If I'm thinking about them, I'm talking to them. I can hear them. I still laugh around them. It might look weird, like I'm laughing in this room by myself, but I'm laughing with Bukowski. I'm asking his permission. I'm talking to J Dilla. I'm talking to Sub. So to me, that's how it is. I think we're all headed in that way of overstanding. But to get over the emotional hump is what's important. When people feel like they lost somebody that they love, know that they're not gone. There's no such thing as out of existence. They're just in another realm. Not to get too much. Mushy with this shit. It's insightful, imaginative words like these that remind us that while Doom came into this world a villain with plans to take over the globe, he left this world a hero who ultimately took over our hearts. Not to get too mushy with this shit.

Thank you Daniel Dumoulet for your contribution to music and art, and thank you everyone for listening this season. I truly appreciate it. Season 12 of Dissect was written and produced by me, Cole Cushna. A huge thank you to Camden Ostrander for their major contribution this season. It's always a pleasure to collaborate with you. A special thank you to Justin Sings. For being an incredible resource this season. Thanks to Kevin Pooler for the great audio production as always and to Bureaucratic for another killer theme. I hope you'll join us next season when we'll dissect another musical masterwork note by note, line by line. Because great art deserves more than a swipe. You