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Despite being an underground staple for the majority of his career, MF DOOM’s recent passing shed light on just how widespread his influence really was. As such an impactful figure in hip-hop, he also has one of the most intriguing — and occasionally even mysterious — stories in the culture, thanks to his reluctance to enter the spotlight and his tendency to disappear for years at a time. Also, he wore a freaking Gladiator mask for public appearances, allowing him to be in multiple places at once via body doubles and shirk off things like interviews.
All these elements make for a fascinating biography, which is what we’ll get in 2024 with The Chronicles Of Doom: Unraveling Rap’s Masked Iconoclast by veteran journalist S.H. Fernando Jr. via Astra House. Fernando Jr. has also written extensively about hip-hop, including in the 1994 book The New Beats: Exploring The Music, Culture And Attitudes Of Hip Hop, and the 2021 Wu-Tang Clan biography, From The Streets Of Shaolin: The Wu-Tang Saga.
After MF DOOM’s death was announced on New Year’s Eve (in typical DOOM fashion, this was two months after he actually died on Halloween), a street in Long Beach, New York, his hometown, was named after him. Meanwhile, rappers from Yasiin Bey to Playboi Carti shared their memories of his outsized impact.
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