About a year ago, I was dropping by the MySpace page of a friend of mine and included in his musical preferences were Murs, Uffie, Justice, and MF Doom. Inattentively, I listened to Murs and MF Doom since Justice and Uffie weren’t new to me. They were artists with a celebrity attitude and beats so played I wouldn’t believe they were still amazing. Metal Fingers Doom was my fate, though.
It wasn’t his lyrics, neither his cartoon. In fact, when I younger, I often rejected how meek its plot was. The show was a nuisance to midnight channel surfing. Meatwad was the only one with cartoon characterization but it was that repetitive imbalance in my remote. Now, when I’m in a cartoon-nostalgic state, however, I dawdle with the Force, ignoring the screenplay because it’s still annoying as hell. However, one Saturday, in a hip hop-appreciative mood, I put an instrumental playlist of MF Doom’s Special Herbs: The Box Set on and was fed by his riffs, his covers, his creativity. They were so animated. I understood why he chose to get into cartooning. If his publication boomed like the attitudes of Justice and Uffie, he would surely be a grace to hip hop. The Midas of early 2000 like T-Pain is today. Doomsday was my favorite since Sade is as well but the lyrics that followed her evoking tone were as mundane as his show. His bars truly distracted me from his brilliant underscores. He was probably real but he sounded stereotypical beneath his soundless air. I was as frustrated as watching Honey years later, all over again. Such a great surface with a misunderstood essence. Maybe I was bereft of what he was exuding.
One night, I spent three hours trying to download an instrumental that featured the voice, or a voice that came in extreme contact with Michael McDonald. His every renowned production, renowned in a smaller industry, leaked into my musical library and I was sold listening to Vomitspit. After discovering what MF Doom and MF Grimm and Dangerdoom, the endless producers to title, were advocating, young aspirers like Archie Coolbeans appealed to me with all the more hip hop appreciation. Both New York kindred have true ears for music. Archie, also known as my new favorite rapper, injected my library with Sofa King, Rhymes Like Dimes, and I Hear Voices. Although a section of his music remained trite, I grew to respect his epitome of hip hop.
He works in his head instead of toward the insightful feedback of listeners. His monotone directs a new sound wave of music. His most recent album isn’t conformed, and he’s still bland and important. His nonsense is fitting and lovely in all; his surface is worthy and so as his essence. He begins to lack a cliché theme.
I still want that MP3 of that one Michael McDonald song, too. With his bars.
