'MM..FOOD' is the Quintessential MF DOOM Album

One day MF DOOM called staHHr and told her about a dream he had.

“Me and you were flying together…and you were shooting blue lasers out of your eyes!” DOOM told staHHr during a phone conversation that took place in the early 2000s. He then insisted she look up an obscure Marvel character called Firestar.

staHHr did her research and found an old VHS tape of the 1980s animated series, Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends. It changed everything. Firestar—who manipulates microwave radiation in order to fly and use fireballs—was a pivotal side-character throughout the Spider-Man cartoon.

“I was in tears watching it,” the Atlanta based rapper told Complex. She first met the legendary masked-up rapper while freestyling backstage at a concert for the rap duo Micranots. “Firestar lost her mom when she was little; she was insecure; and she had these superpowers but didn’t really know what to do with them. People are always trying to manipulate her, yet she somehow perseveres and wins out. She was me all over and I had found my Metal Face persona. I guess DOOM knew this alter-ego would give me freedom and could be liberating.”

This moment transformed a shy, young Muslim woman’s confidence and resulted in a new rapping alter-ego of “Angelika Jones.” It’s a character that staHHr uses to take full command of the heartbroken but sexually-liberated “Guinnessez,” one of many vibrant highlights from MF DOOM’s MM..FOOD album, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this week (the album was released on November 16, 2004.)

DOOM’s culinary-obsessed fifth studio album, and the only one of his to be released on the Minneapolis-based indie label Rhymesayers, has come back into sharp focus thanks to a new reissue and expanded edition filled with remixes, unheard interviews, and alternative artwork. While Operation: Doomsday is often regarded as the rough-around-the-edges essential origin of DOOM, and Madvillainy with Madlib is seen as his creative peak, MM..FOOD has steadily risen in stature as the true gem of his catalog—the album you should listen to if you want to understand the man behind the mask and all of his idiosyncrasies.

How MF DOOM the character offered pure escapism

staHHr’s anecdote powerfully reflects how MF DOOM (real name Daniel Dumile) inspired supreme confidence in all his collaborators for the creation of this classic 2004 album, trusting them unconditionally to dig deep and use their imagination.

Other than a preview CD copy, along with some small instructions about having someone tied to a tree on the back cover, the expressionist artist Jason Jagel was also given free rein when it came to painting the original MM..FOOD artwork. “DOOM had created this massive mythical comic-book universe just to grapple with the loss of his brother,” Jagel said. “This left a deep impression on me.”

Jagel is referencing the fact the alter-ego of MF DOOM and that iconic Gladiator-themed mask were both created as a way for the artist—previously known as Zev Love X—to reignite his love for rapping. It was something he had drifted far away from following the tragic death of his brother Subroc, who was a fellow member of the rap trio KMD. Subroc passed away at 19 following a car accident in 1993, leaving his older brother feeling spiritually exhausted. By jumping deep into an alter-ego, DOOM could step outside his own demons for a second and feel powerful again. The character of MF DOOM offered pure escapism.

“DOOM had a stream of consciousness way of working and it was always encoded with personal references designed to make you laugh or to tell a dirty joke to deflect attention from grief,” Jagel said. “There’s this fine balance between embracing the light and having this shadow side. I wanted my artwork for MM..FOOD to be an extension of all of that.”

Jagel rapturously absorbed Operation Doomsday while studying at Stanford University so he was familiar with his work. Jagel mocked up MM..FOOD’s artwork—which features DOOM cooking a steak by the river and eating from a bowl of liquor-filled cereal that contains the rocky head of the Thing from The Fantastic Four—in “about a day, max.” The painting is filled with easter eggs, exaggerated character proportions in the vein of famed Marvel artist Jack Kirby, and niche yet nostalgic call backs to an inner-city NYC’ childhood—including a stereo boombox.

DOOM accepted this vision almost instantly. The MM..FOOD artwork, just like the music, is heavily layered and seems to be conflating the commercialism of conveyor belt-led “mystery meat” food production with the poisoned lyrical fruits that record labels were routinely feeding America’s youth. To directly quote DOOM from the record’s opener, “Beef Rapp:” “Stop feeding babies coloured, sugar-coated lard squares!”

“You could definitely see how DOOM was parodying fast food culture; it feels like there’s always a wry smile behind everything, though,” Jagel said. “With MM…FOOD he crafted something that’s funny and cynical but sad and deep, all at the same time. The artist Josef Albers said great art must operate on multiple levels at once, and DOOM knew that too well.”

From Madvillainy to MM..FOOD

MM..FOOD capped off a particularly prolific period for MF DOOM, who only a year prior had released Take Me To Your Leader (under another alter-ego, King Geedorah) and Vaudeville Villain (as Viktor Vaughn). In 2004, he released Madvillainy and a sequel to Vaudeville Villain before finally ending the year with MM..FOOD. Creatively it seemed like DOOM was flying high above the clouds, just like in one of his dreams.

While creating MM..FOOD, staHHr remembers DOOM opening cans of Guinness with his teeth in the studio and rocking a huge smile just like a “carefree child trapped in an adult’s body.” The project’s jubilant lyrics—particularly the geeky percussion of “Kon Queso” and the bubbly triumphant bar of, “Break the mic like a rock star breaks a guitar / then jump off the stage like: ‘Yee-Hah!’”—are so obviously coming from an artist operating at the peak of their powers.

DOOM had a precise vision for MM..FOOD and wanted it to be a concept album with “analogies between food and life,” correlating the trials and tribulations of ghetto life with what you might find on an average summer picnic table. On “Hoe Cakes” he examines a snack that goes back to the slavery period, and he also explores how America’s prostitution and drug businesses share similarities with how Walmart shamelessly markets processed food brands by offering brash colored packaging to consumers.

The deliriously fun Madvillainy-leftover “One Beer,” sees DOOM reference both the fact he’s fathered a lot of children and also tends to create rhymes that serve as life mantras. He raps in that trademark husky baritone: “It’s like he's eating watermelon, stays spitting new seeds.”

Some reviews at the time criticized the eccentric, rap-free middle section of the album (“Poo-Putt Platter” to “Fig Leaf Bi-Carbonate”) for upsetting the overall pace. But this collage-like stretch feels like an 80s’ Saturday morning cartoon come to life and is the perfect projection of DOOM’s nutty sense of humor.

MF DOOM was catching ‘Subtle Wreck’

Throughout MM..FOOD the lead artist carries the mischievous energy of a Scooby Doo villain prepared to release poison gas into a government war room. He openly mocks rappers who have de-evolved into product marketing magnates, rather than offering any lyrical substance, with another scathing line: “For a mill, do a commercial for Mello Yello / tell them devils, “Hell no! Sell your own jello!” For staHHr these types of bars were an extension of a technique the pair liked to call “subtle wreck”.

“He was dropping so much science on MM..FOOD. DOOM used to call those types of lyrics: ‘Subtle Wreck.’ It meant you didn’t need to beat the listener over the head to get your message across. You could do so more carefully and gracefully,” staHHr said. “He wanted to show the same way food had been commoditized, filled with coloring, and genetically modified, well, the rap music was getting that way too. But it was about getting this message across without losing your sense of fun.”

MM..FOOD feels like one of DOOM’s most personal projects. Whether it’s glowing Anita Baker and Frank Zappa samples lifted directly from his childhood or lyrics about being unable to afford a Cherry Coke, there’s flashbacks to DOOM—who was born in London but moved to Long Beach, New York as child—and his previous experiences existing on the edges of poverty. Amid a sample of a shimmering saxophone lifted from Ronnie Laws’ “Friends and Strangers,” which pulses forward with warm nostalgia, DOOM uses “Deep Fried Frenz” to share a lifetime’s worth of lessons about treachery and backstabbers.

“Never let your so-called man’s know your plans,” he warns in a downcast slightly paranoid vocal that completely goes against the beat’s giddy tempo. The core message seems to be that friends tend to let you down and it’s only really family blood that you can rely on for loyalty. For the underground MC Your Old Droog, who collaborated with MF DOOM on “Dropout Boogie,” “Deep Fried Frenz” is the perfect example of how the artist’s on-wax fables tended to educate the listener.

“I discovered MM..FOOD when I was 18 and distancing myself from being an ignorant no-good teenager,” Droog told Complex. “So the ‘never let your so-called mans know your plans’ line really resonated with me. It was like he was speaking directly to me. I think that’s what great music should do: educate the seeds. That whole album is full of lessons, period. The comic book and cartoon angle is an ageless, almost raceless thing, that any young consumer can buy into.”

The legacy of “Rapp Snitch Knishes”

By far the most popular song on MM…FOOD is “Rapp Snitch Knishes,” which features an appearance from the mysterious DOOM collaborator Mr. Fantastik. The song has a staggering 340 million streams on Spotify, as of publication, making it the most streamed of his catalog. The beat carries the intoxicating snap of kids beatboxing on the school playground and its bombastic, yacht rock-esque electric guitar—lifted from a Dave Matthews cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”—provide a glittery, soft landing for the song’s cutting anti-snitching subject matter.

Eighteen years before Young Thug would be taken down on RICO charges by the federal government, and rappers would routinely see their lyrics used against them in court, this DOOM song warned MCs of saying too much through its strangely catchy chant: “Sit in the court and be their own star witness… fuck around, get the whole label sent up for years.” For rising Chicago MC D2x—an MC who, just like DOOM, seems obsessed with finding innovative new ways to rap about being great at rapping and killing rivals with words rather than violence—this song reflects how MM..FOOD is filled with “prophecies”.

“DOOM also taught me how to think outside the box with the words,” D2x said. “By wearing the mask, he put the music at the forefront. It showed the rap world you can be successful just on the quality of the music, rather than through the strength of your image. On MM..FOOD what I love about DOOM’s rapping and production choices is it takes you on an unorthodox rollercoaster ride. You never know what to expect, and there’s always a million different layers and flavors.”

DOOM collaborator staHHr agrees with this assessment: “DOOM played with language and onomatopoeia and alliteration and hyperbole just like an English professor might,” she said. “To become such a great writer, you have to be a great reader, and he never stopped reading. We were all proud nerds.”

For the mastermind behind MM..FOOD’s artwork, the album is still being spoken about with so much reverence in 2024 due to how DOOM doodled with words and created songs that operated within the mental margins. “Marginalia in art is the doodles that feature on the edge of the paper, which I enjoy the most because they lift from a different part of your consciousness and real gems come out,” Jagel said. “That’s how I ended up with a city in a bottle on DOOM’s “Hoe Cakes” single artwork or a brand called “Bling Cherries” in the painting. That space is where DOOM existed as an artist, too. That sleight of hand, winking at the camera in an authoritative voice kind of thing, he just did it so beautifully on MM..FOOD. I only spoke to him once, but it was clear I was speaking to a real genius and that every moment had been carefully considered.”

Every subsequent rapper that wears a mask or raps audaciously about food was probably inspired by MF DOOM in some way, even if they don’t know it yet, according to staHHr. Above all else, DOOM showed with MM…FOOD that you “could get brand deals and Gold and Platinum plaques without compromising your style or sacrificing on your integrity,” she said. (MF DOOM would enter in a creative collaboration with Adult Swim the next year; while the album would be certified gold and “Rapp Snitch Knishes” would go platinum by the 2020s.)

Perhaps the best assessment of MM..FOOD’s enduring powers for hip hop fans can actually be found in the goofy vampiric voice featured on the album’s intro. “Here you will find food for your body…as well as comfort for your troubled mind.”