Happy 20th Anniversary to MF DOOM’s fifth studio album Mm.. Food, originally released November 16, 2004.
When Daniel “MF DOOM” Dumile released MM.. Food 20 years ago, he was wrapping up one of the best and most unorthodox album runs in hip-hop history. In the space of a little under a year-and-a-half, he released four classic projects, each under a different name/alias. After getting experimental with King Geedorah’s Take Me To Your Leader (2003), Viktor Vaughn’s Vaudeville Villain (2003), and Madvillain’s Madvillainy (2004), DOOM returned to familiar ground, releasing his second album under the MF DOOM moniker, his fifth album overall, and continuing the astonishing tales of the Metal-Faced Villain.
I’ve written tributes to all of the DOOM-related albums released during this period, and MM.. Food is of the same caliber as the others, which is to say that it’s among the best albums of the ’00s. DOOM maintains his creativity both in front of and behind the boards, remaining one of the most gifted rapper/producer double-threats of all time. The album remains an immensely enjoyable listening experience to this day.
By the time that MM.. Food dropped through Rhymesayers Entertainment, DOOM enthusiasts had already been exposed to the instrumental version of much of the musical backdrop. DOOM had begun releasing his Special Herbs series of beat CDs in the early ’00s, eventually reaching ten volumes of the material. However, while the music may have been familiar at times, DOOM was improving as an emcee. DOOM continued to adapt his rhyme style; very few songs on the album feature traditionally structured verse-chorus hip-hop tracks. Instead, DOOM often unleashes a stream of lengthy verses, only to be broken up by sampled pieces of dialogue.
MM.. Food serves as the sequel to Operation: Doomsday (1999). It’s the next “issue” or story-arc in DOOM’s plans to achieve total domination. During the skits between the songs on the album, he incorporates more samples from the aforementioned Spider-Man vs. Dr. Doom episode, as well as other cartoons and records that feature the Metal Fingers as the main antagonist. As an added bonus, many of the songs are food or drink-themed, or at least share a title with something having to do with food and/or alcohol.
As a producer, DOOM has an amazing ear for samples. Throughout his career he’s been able to pull out the exact right sections of tracks, be they popular R&B songs or soundtracks to obscure anime, and transform them into perfect tracks. The only artist who rivals DOOM’s talent in this area is early to mid ’90s era RZA.
DOOM puts his ear to excellent use throughout MM.. Food, starting with “Beef Rapp,” the album’s opening track. Here he samples sections of an episode of the 1980s version of the Spider-Man cartoon, repurposing its music and re-cutting vocal samples to advance the song’s “story.” When on the mic, DOOM is in peak form, weaving in his vast pop culture knowledge into his clever rhymes, filtering it through his drunken slur. He describes himself in the third person as “a rhyming cannibal who’s dressed to kill and cynical / Whether is it animal, vegetable or mineral / It’s a miracle how he get so lyrical / And proceed to move the crowd like an old Negro spiritual.”
MM.. Food is also a sequel to Doomsday in terms of DOOM’s approach to production. Like his first solo album, he continues to pair late ’70s and early ’80s Quiet Storm R&B with hard-hitting hip-hop drums. Or, in some, cases, beat boxes, like on the album’s first single “Hoe Cakes.” DOOM chops the vocal percussion from the intro to J.J. Fad’s “Supersonic” and pairs it with the shimmering keys and bass from Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love.” Alternately describing himself as the hip-hop D.B. Cooper and “the boss like King Koopa,” DOOM brags about his extra-curricular exploits with the lovely ladies of the world, and throws in a reference to Foofur for good measure.
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Songs like “Kon Carne” and “Deep Fried Frenz” also both fall into the previously described production style. DOOM shows his continued affinity for beat boxes, mixing the intro to Just Ice’s “LaToya” with a brief snatch from Sade’s “Is It a Crime.” Meanwhile, on “Deep Fried Frenz,” DOOM blends the drum track and vocals from Whodini’s “Friends” with a horn breakdown from Hubert Laws’ “Friends and Strangers.” It’s the ideal backdrop for DOOM to discuss the complicated dynamics of friendship and loyalty, and learning when to trust someone and when to watch out for betrayal.
“Rap Snitch Knishes” is one of MM.. Food’s most enduring entries. The song is a team-up with the elusive Mr. Fantastik that they use to ridicule rappers who “snitch” on themselves through their rhymes, expressing disgust towards any rapper who would “sit up in court and by their own star witness.” The song features the second and likely final performance from Mr. Fantastik, a longtime friend of DOOM’s who moved from New York to Atlanta a little while before DOOM did. While rhyming on a sample of the guitar break from David Matthew’s “Space Odyssey,” DOOM warns, “Informer, keep it up and get tested / Pop through your bubble vest or double-breasted.”
DOOM is also extremely skilled at putting together sound collage tracks, where he tells a story through vocal samples taken from many different sources. On Take Me To Your Leader, he created the track “Monster Zero,” made up of dialogue from old monster movies and other associated dramas. For MM.. Food, he puts together a four part food-themed suite, expertly taking and rearranging vocals from obscure Saturday morning cartoons, news broadcasts, and children’s programming. Through his manipulations, he fashions conversations with superheroes who call each other “chicken heads,” characters from the Electric Company talk about tripping on hallucinogens, and Sesame Street’s Roosevelt Franklin cautioning the album’s listeners about the dangers of food additives.
MM.. Food features a few instances of outside production, which wasn’t that commonplace for him. Usually DOOM projects either featured the Metal-Faced Villain handling all of the production or none of it. However, all of these tracks fit in well within the flow of the album and aren’t vastly different stylistic departures. For example, on “Potholderz,” DOOM teams with longtime friend Count Bass D, a fellow Atlanta resident who rhymes and produces the track. Over a slightly sped-up and quirky loop of Billy Butler’s “400 Girls Ago,” the two trade verses, providing more hot shit for eager listeners.
“Kon Queso,” produced by PNS of the Chicago-based production crew the Molemen, fits in well with the sound of the rest of the album. With its pulsing synthesizers, the track sounds like the early ’80s video-game version of a network news theme song. Originally titled “Yee Haw” and released as an independent 12” in 2003, DOOM explains at length how he’ll “Train a sane brain to an insane train of thought / On a campaign trail he came to gain your support / Charge cash for an autograph / Say some shit to make your daughter laugh, then slaughter the ass.”
“One Beer” is one of the best and weirdest tracks on the album. Produced by Madlib, it was an unused track from the Madvilliany recording sessions; Stones Throw released the song on a limited 45 RPM not long after Madvillainy dropped. One reason that it might not have been included on the Madvillain album is that DOOM raps over a version of Jaylib’s “No Games,” one of the better songs on Champion Sound (2003), also released on Stones Throw.
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DOOM takes a track that Jay Dee blessed and transforms it into a separate and equally dope entity, making it very much into a “DOOM” track, rather than a Madvillain jam. Over slightly sped-up sections of Cortex’s “Huit Octobre 197,” DOOM begins the song by warbling a drunken rendition of “I Get a Kick Out Of You,” then launches into another prolonged verse fueled by stream of consciousness imagery. He mocks wack rappers who “sound like cheerleaders, rapping and dancing like Redhead Kingpin” and professes to “wear a mask like a ’tarded helmet.”
MM.. Food closes strong, first with “Vomitspit,” where DOOM again kicks a lengthy verse on top of a piano sample from Mashmakhan’s “Happy You Should Be.” Lyrically, the song features some DOOM braggadocio and other kernels of wisdom outlining what’s required to survive in the New York streets. “Plead the fifth, sip wine stiffly,” he raps. “Patiently come up and be spiffy in a jiffy / Gift for the grind, criminal mind shifty / Swift with the nine through a fifty nine fifty.”
The album then wraps up with “Kookies,” DOOM’s account of addiction to online pornography, while incorporating references to many brands and types of cookies and sweet treats. The original version of the song was built around a sample of the closing credits to Sesame Street and featured vocal samples of the Cookie Monster and The Count. Later pressings of the album feature DOOM rhyming over a stripped-down drum track, with the track likely altered due to sample clearance issues.
DOOM’s career following MM.. Food featured some good music, but also a lot of stops, starts, and obstacles. He began recording an album with Ghostface Killah, which may or may not have been completed and may or may not ever be released. He took most of the mid to late ’00s off, finally releasing a proper follow up to MM.. Food when Born Like This (2009) dropped a little less than a half decade later. During the intervening five years, DOOM endured health scares and eventually began the “DOOMposter” live show fiasco, where he wouldn’t appear at his own concerts, instead hiring someone else to lip synch his lyrics on stage.
In 2010 he went to Europe to tour, but wasn’t allowed back in the United States due to complications with his passport. During the subsequent years, he recorded and released material sporadically, often working in the production capacity. The last album he released before his passing in October 2020 was Czarface Meets Metal Face (2018), his team-up with the duo of Esoteric and Inspektah Deck.
But while it was happening, DOOM’s album run was amazing to behold and helped inspire a whole younger generation of rappers, who were influenced by his quirkiness and unorthodox approach to rapping and production. And it cemented him as one of the best artists of his generation.
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Editor's note: this anniversary tribute was originally published in 2019 and has since been edited for accuracy and timeliness.