On the final day of what seems like the longest year in history (honestly, it could well have been), came the announcement of the passing of Hip Hop pioneer, MF DOOM, who sadly passed away aged 49 in October last year. 

At Rewired we’re well influenced by Hip Hop music. Hip Hop is a vast genre and really is a melting pot of talent, it’s got everything from Grime and Drill, to more laid back jazzy sounds, some of which made MF DOOM most famous, with off beat hooks and lyrical mastery that only a true artist could pull off.

Well known for donning a spectacular metal mask, MF DOOM remained iconic within the underground Hip Hop scene for his entire career, conjuring up DOOM classics such as Doomsday, Beef Rap and That’s That, creating sounds that have inspired entire careers of the likes of Earl Sweatshirt, Tyler the Creator and more.

Who was MF DOOM?

Daniel Dumile, a British-American artist who started in the 1980’s and was a true icon of underground Hip Hop by the 2000’s. As both a rapper and a producer, Dumile spent a large proportion of his career working and collaborating with other prolific Hip Hop artists such as Ghostface Killah and even appeared on a track on the 6 x platinum Gorillaz album, Demon Days.

His mask was based on an entire persona created to allow for deep and detailed story telling within his music. The mask itself was loosely based on Doctor Doom, a supervillain from the Marvel comics franchise, something that Dumile was a fan of from his early years, as a collector of comic books as a child. The majority of MF DOOM footage always depicts Dumile in the mask, as it was not only a marker of his performances, but a tool used to tell a story, something that allows listeners of his music to delve deeper into the meaning of the lyrics. Interestingly, Dumile almost saw the mask as a character, not an extension of himself, which is why it is rumoured that for some performances, Dumile would send somebody else on stage wearing a mask, not to skip out of performing, rather it was to allow Dumile to produce and direct his shows in a slightly different manner, with a different perspective.

It goes without saying that MF DOOM has had a huge impact on Hip Hop music and will continue to do so for many, many years to come. His style and presence made an impact and made him known, not as just a rapper or a producer, but a true performer who took his own unique identity and bossed it, a philosophy that we ourselves at Rewired Clothing, truly subscribe to.