Artiste: MF Doom
Album: Metal Fingers presents: Special Herbs, Vols.5 & 6
Spotlight Track: Coffin Nails
Label: Nature Sounds / Metal Face Records
The Metal Finger Villian For Lord Dihoo Music (ASCAP)
Oooooooooooohwee!! What we have here folks is Daniel Dumile, a British-born American B-boy otherwise known as MF Doom and Viktor Vaughn. He’s quite an ah pek cos one of his 2 kids is already a teenager! Fierce! Imagine growing up in school knowing your dad is HEADZ! Hahaha! Mad shit! Beyond cool liao!
Doom’s got quite a history.. he was actually signed to Elektra years ago back in the early 1990s with his rap outfit KMD, but when brother and co-member Subroc died in an accident, the label kinda played him out and dropped KMD’s intended second release, Black Bastards. He went through a bout of depression and was living the underground, sleeping on benches and shit. Little did he know however, Black Bastards had become bootlegged and was prepping his rise in the underground hip-hop world.
Anyway, fast forward to a couple of years later, Doom went through some reinvention and transformation as an artist and re-entered the scene spotting a metal mask inspired by Marvel Comics supervillain Doctor Doom. He then collaborated with Madlib to form Madvillian and with the release of Madvillainy under Stones Throw Records, Doom got the commercial recognition he finally deserved and headz from all over were opening their ears to what this cat was dishing out.. mad beats and excellent rhymes!
Now, the album that I’m reviewing today is a bit different from the shit Doom is famous for, instead, Special Herbs is a series of releases in tribute to his weed consuming habit where every title is either a name of a bud or something related to it.. like I said, fella is Headz! These volumes are collections of beats and samples that Doom’s put together for outright stone-to-da-bone tangkaping sessions, nevertheless, the quality is up there and the vibe is full-on hip hop with heavy Rare Groove, Jazz Funk influences.
The spotlight track is straight up hands-in-the-air, head bopping summer vibes, method simple and vibe effective.. lurve it!! The guitar riff and bass licks ride the pimp-ass beats really nicely here so all I’ve gotta say is enjoy the sample ; )
Lastly, just wanna sign off with some words-of-wisdom from Doom himself:
“To me, from a musical aspect, hip hop is going into the direction where its almost damn near 100% on everything besides the music, what you look like, the sound of your name, to what you’re wearing, the brand of clothing, whatever intoxicants you choose to put in your body, everything except what the music sounds like. So the mask is really a testament to yo, it’s not about none of that, it’s straight about the wreck. You could be any color or whatever, youknowhaddaimsayin’? The mask represents everybody to say that yo, nothing matters, the brand of clothing, none of that matters, it’s about how you spit and how the beats is raw, thats what it’s about.”
Tangkap This!!!
-Crispian
