MF DOOM has been gone for greater than 4 years now, however the mysterious masked rapper’s legacy lives on. Since his passing in 2020 at age 49, podcasts and books have traced his life, whereas innumerable tributes in song and memorial sets at major festivals have highlighted the rapper’s legacy. Now, there’s a revamped take a look at one among his hottest initiatives.
A deluxe 20th anniversary edition of DOOM’s 2004 album Mm..Food was launched on Nov. 15 by Rhymesayers Leisure and Metalface Data. It options beforehand hard-to-find remixes, together with one by Madlib, in addition to interview clips. There are additionally vinyl, CD, and cassette variations with additional goodies.
Mm..Meals is notable for a lot of causes. It’s each weird even by DOOM’s eccentric requirements (that is, in spite of everything, the man who rapped an entire album as a Godzilla villain), and was additionally arguably his most commercially profitable venture, with a number of profitable singles and even a gold certification.
It additionally has fairly a historical past. Under are 10 enjoyable info you might not learn about Mm..Meals. And no, we don’t depend the truth that the title is an anagram for MF DOOM’s title — think about {that a} bonus.
Each Track Has A Double Which means
The album’s title is a clue to its main conceit: the songs are meals (or generally drink) themed. However issues aren’t all the time as they appear, particularly with a supervillain.
“It needed to be two issues: It needed to be a meals individuals might relate to and there needed to be one other play on the phrase,” DOOM explained to XXL. “So it is about discovering a phrase the place you may take two totally different approaches to it.”
The idea was that, along with the floor rationalization, there can be a second which means for every music related both to hip-hop or to society at giant.
“Meals is nourishment,” DOOM mentioned. “And that is nourishment on a hip-hop degree.”
Mm..Meals Gave DOOM His Solely Platinum Single
MF DOOM has two licensed gold albums — this report and his Madlib collaboration Madvillainy. Each reached that standing simply this 12 months. However Mm..Meals has two gold singles, “One Beer” and “Hoe Cakes.”
Much more remarkably, the album additionally has a platinum one, DOOM’s solely million-seller: “Rapp Snitch Knishes.”
“Kookies” Had A Totally different Beat…And Accommodates A Shocking Second Which means
The original beat for “Kookies,” which appeared on preliminary pressings of the album (and is now billed as a remix), was produced by Simply Blaze. The explanation it was eliminated? It contained an unlicensed pattern from a “Sesame Avenue” report that the producer bought when he was six years previous. Simply tells the complete, very charming, story here.
Per the album’s dual-meaning conceit, the music isn’t simply concerning the form of cookies you eat, DOOM defined in an interview that befell in 2004.
“‘Kookies’ is sick, completely on some Web porn kind s—,” he instructed author Luke Fox. “I discover while you on-line on some porn s—, the phrase cookies comes up. Oh, I assume that is the image because it saves to your laborious drive. They name these cookies. So, I bought a fever for them cookies. I am a cookie monster, making an attempt to enter the cookie jar.
“So, on the floor the music appears like I am speaking about common cookies,” DOOM continued, “however there’s little innuendos that’ll let you recognize.”
The Album Got here With A Bonus Disk & Recipe
A bonus CD known as, appropriately, Mm..LeftOvers was given away with some copies of the album. On the report are a number of remixes which have been repurposed for the Mm..Meals twentieth anniversary reissue. It additionally comprises one among this author’s favourite DOOM duets, the hilarious “Hot Guacamole” with MC Paul Barman. (“What kind of sick kind of sick tips do the masks do?” Barman asks. “The faceplate take away, and I give chicks tattoo,” DOOM responds.)
Along with music, the bonus disc comes with a bonus recipe from the artist himself, for “Villainous Mac & Cheeze.” If you wish to make the dish, you’ll find the recipe here.
DOOM Requested For A Shocking Change To The Cowl Artwork
Mm..Meals’s cowl reveals a cartoon DOOM at a desk, consuming breakfast. However artist Jason Jägel’s original cover had one main distinction from the model we’ve come to know and love: it confirmed the rapper smoking a blunt.
As soon as the drawing got here in, artwork director Jeff Jank bought a request to take away the blunt. The ask didn’t come from the report label, or a nervous supervisor. As an alternative, it got here instantly from DOOM himself.
A Quantity Of The Beats Are Particular Herbs
Numerous the music on Mm..Meals is acquainted to die-hard DOOM followers, as a result of the beats seem with totally different titles on his Particular Herbs sequence of instrumental albums. For instance, Special Herbs, Vol. 4, 5 & 6, launched a full 12 months earlier than Mm..Meals, comprises three beats that will present up on the album.
It Has The Riskiest Stretch Of Any DOOM Album
Each evaluation of Mm..Meals complains concerning the lengthy string of 4 consecutive skits that sits proper in the midst of the album. Pitchfork, for instance, called it “a nasty rut that makes Mm..Meals? just about unplayable front-to-back after the primary few spins.”
Definitely, DOOM was conscious that taking a full six and a half minutes in the midst of his LP to dedicate to skits may not be a well-liked determination — however he proceeded anyway. Audiences are left with an excellent audio collage that advances his character’s narrative, ties into the themes of the album and provides nostalgic glimpses into his childhood by way of its samples, together with The Electric Company.
The Album Impressed A Cookbook
Appropriately, a food-themed rap album impressed an precise cookbook. Bushwick Grill Membership put collectively Mm..Food — The Recipes. It options spicy beef lettuce wraps (due to the album’s “Beef Rapp”), chopped cheese knishes (for “Rapp Snitch Knishes”), and extra.
Illustrated by Cassady Benson and written by meals trade vet Frank Davis, the cookbook is “about taking an album the place DOOM laid out a 15-dish menu and turning that motherf—er right into a recipe zine,” Davis wrote.
It Introduces A Totally different Comics-Impressed Alter Ego.
DOOM, after all, took his supervillain character from Physician Doom. However on Mm..Meals he impressed a buddy to undertake a comic book character persona as properly. Rapper Stahhr seems on the music “Guinnessez” as “Angelika,” a persona named for Angelica Jones, a.okay.a. Firestar, from Spider-Man and His Superb Pals.
“I didn’t know that I used to be going to be named Angelika on the music,” Stahhr told Complex. “DOOM known as me someday and mentioned, ‘Yo, I had this dream, you have been flying, you had these blue lasers taking pictures out of your eyes. That’s your vitality, actually highly effective, I would like you to look [Firestar] up.’ I went to the comedian e-book retailer, I purchased all of the comics about Firestar and I learn them, like, ‘That is precisely me.’”
The Album Led To DOOM’s First Nationwide Tour
Amazingly for an artist who put out his first single underneath the MF DOOM moniker in 1997, it took till the Mm…Meals album cycle for DOOM to mount a nationwide tour. The trek, with opener Brother Ali, took the villain from coast to coast.
He saved the album’s culinary theme going even on the highway, as a canned meals drive was arrange at the side of native meals banks for every present. The Mm..Food Drive Tour reportedly raised over a thousand kilos of meals.
