LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Daniel Dumile, best know as the rapper and producer MF Doom, died on October 31, his wife announced on the artists Instagram page on Thursday afternoon. He was 49.
To Dumile. The greatest husband, father, teacher, student, business partner, lover and friend I could ever ask for, his wife wrote. Thank you for all the things you have shown, taught and given to me, our children and our family. Thank you for teaching me how to forgive beings and give another chance, not to be so quick to judge and write off. Thank you for showing how not to be afraid to love and be the best person I could ever be. 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. May THE ALL continue to bless you, our family and the planet. All my Love, Jasmine.
No cause of death was provided, only that MF Doom had transitioned on October 31.
One of the most celebrated, unpredictable and enigmatic figures in independent hip-hop, Dumile was born in London, but relocated to New York City as a child. He began his music career under the name Zev Lov X as part of the trio K.M.D. alongside his brother DJ Subroc, and the group had a minor hit in the early 1990s. After Subroc was killed in a car accident in 1993, the group disbanded, and Dumile retreated from public view, only to reemerge toward the end of the decade with a new name and an extravagant new persona.
Now calling himself MF Doom and wearing a metal mask inspired by the Marvel Comics villain Dr. Doom, Dumile released Operation: Doomsday in 1999. Produced by Dumile himself under the pseudonym Metal Fingers, the album couldnt have been more out of step with hip-hops mainstream; featuring Dumiles signature plainspoken flow and head-spinning volleys of intricate internal rhymes, off-the-wall cultural references and non-sequiturs, the album gained him a sizable cult following.
Dumiles career was anything but straightforward, and he followed up the notoriety gained through Doomsday with a flurry of collaborations, instrumental releases and projects under the alternate alias Viktor Vaughn. His aligned with the influential Minneapolis label Rhymesayers for his second album as Doom, Mm…Food, in late 2004, but it was another project from earlier that year that truly established him among the uppermost ranks of independent hip-hop figures. Released via the Highland Park indie Stones Throw, Madvillainy united Dumile with California producer Madlib, with whom he established an uncanny chemistry. By turns cerebral and goofy, drugged-out and lucid, the album offered heady, jagged-edged collages of jazz samples and obscure film dialog, while Dooms rhymes were as absurd, inventive, hilarious and endlessly quotable as ever. The album saw Dumile enter the lower rungs of the Billboard top 200 album chart, and brought with it substantial press attention and praise from some of the biggest names in hip-hop.
The following year, Dumile returned to the charts this time breaking into the top 50 via a collaboration with producer Danger Mouse, dubbed The Mouse and the Mask. Dumiles subsequent recording career was characteristically erratic, releasing plenty of unexpected projects (including repeat work with Cartoon Networks Adult Swim), while other long-rumored collaborations (particularly a joint album with the Wu-Tang Clans Ghostface Killah) failed to materialize. Never seen in public without his metal mask, Dumile became notorious for sometimes sending masked impostors to lip-sync in his stead at concerts; asked about this habit by Rolling Stone, he explained, everything we do is villain-style.
His last full album as Doom (having since dropped the MF) was released in 2009 titled Born Like This, it featured production from Madlib as well as the late J Dilla, and saw Dumile break into the album charts for the first time as a solo artist.