MF Doom Dead at 49

Daniel Dumile, famous rapper who is also known as MF DOOM, Victor Vaughn, and King Geedorah, passed away October 31,2020, but his death was not announced to the public until December 31. A big figure in the rap community as rappers such as Childish Gambino and Tyler the Creator have cited him as an influence. How did a homeless man in New York become one of the most famous underground rappers of all time?

Daniel Dumile was born in London on July 13th 1971. His family then moved to New York when he was a child. Dumile started DJing at a young age then went on to form a group with his brother called KMD. Dumile, now known as Zeb Luv X and his brother now known as DJ Subroc and other MC Rodan began working on their first album “Mr Hood”. Mr Hood was released in 1991 and remained in underground success. Right before the release of KMDs second album, Subroc was struck by a car while trying to cross the Long Island Expressway and the record company cancelled the release of the album.

Dumile would remain quiet and reportedly homeless until 1999 when he released his first album under the MF DOOM moniker Doomsday. The album would be an underground success, then in 2003 he had one of the most impressive 3 year spans in music history. In 2003 he would release Take Me to Your Leader as King Geedorah and Vaudeville Villain as Viktor Vaughn. In 2004 he would release Vaudeville Villain 2 one of his more underrated works, Mm…Food which is widely regarded as his best album under the name MF DOOM, and Madvillainy with the producer Madlib which is regarded as one of the most influential albums of all time. He would go on to make Danger Doom with Dangermouse in association with Adult Swim. He would remain quiet until 2009 when he released his final solo album Born Like this, then went on to do Keys to the Kuffs with Jnerio Jarel, NehruvianDoom with Bishop Nehru and Czarface Meets Metal Face with Czarface. In 2017, DOOM announced that his 14 year old son King Malachi Ezekiel Dumile had passed away, no cause of death was given.

On December 31st 2020, a post was made on DOOM’s instagram that had these words from his wife “My world will never be the same without you. Words will never express what you and Malachi mean to me, I love both and adore you always. No cause of death was given and neither was the reason they waited to announce it to the public. Many figures paid tribute to DOOM including Questlove of the roots and DJ Premier of Gang Starr. As DOOM once said “Ever since the womb ‘til I’m back where my brother went that’s what my tomb will say.” 

RIP The Supervillain.