Their debut album Madvillainy was met with wide critical acclaim for its unique approach. Madvillainy has restored my excitement toward hip-hop, but it also set a much higher standard for the rest of the genre to live up to.Madvillain was an American hip-hop duo consisting of two MCs and producers, MF DOOM and Madlib. With songs so short, it doesn’t give itself much of a chance to wear out its welcome. It’s a blast from the get-go and never gets old. Madlib and DOOM have crafted what may be the hip-hop album of the year. His wordplay can range from seamless flows (“ They say Madvillain spit enough lightnin’/to rock the boogie down to Brighton/A’ight then“) to silly one-liners (“ Spit so many verses, sometimes my jaw twitches/one thing this party needs is more…ahem…booze“). Madlib’s production is crackly and warm, providing a fun environment for DOOM to flex his lyrical muscles.
He’s just showing everyone how a diabolical character like himself goes about his day, saving the evildoing for another album, perhaps. However, DOOM’s portrayal of himself as a supervillain is more of the average, everyday villain variety. It’s not too far off from Kool Keith’s incarnation as Dr.
In contrast to Wu-Tang style superhero alter-egos like Bobby Digital, Tony Starks or Johnny Blaze, Madvillain stays consistent and light-hearted with campy comic book themes and quirky cartoon and cop show samples. Instead, Madvillainy offers 22 tracks (most under two minutes) of fun, escapist, imaginative hip-hop. DOOM and Madlib don’t succumb to the trappings of caveman misogyny or pop-rap mundanity. In short, Madvillain is exactly what frustrated hip-hop fans like myself have been craving for a long, long time. Madvillainy, DOOM’s collaboration with producer Madlib, turns the conventions and traditions of hip-hop upside down, resulting in a strange, almost Dadaist mixture of mind-blowing wordplay, hilarity, hi-jinks and ultra-cool jazzy samples from Madlib’s miles of crates. Doom mask and playing a comic book villain. Then comes along MF DOOM, one Daniel Dumile, a veteran rapper who got his start in early ’90s rap outfit KMD but now sticks to wearing a Dr. And don’t even get me started on “emo” rap. But the underground has its share of played out cliches as well, primarily stemming from an unnatural tendency to live every year like it’s 1991. Even the best of the best, from Outkast to Kanye West, have a tendency to release albums too heavily weighted with skits, intros, outros and shout-outs. Mainstream rap has consistently been hit or miss, with pioneers like Jay-Z often being eclipsed by a chorus of Nellys or Lil Jons. Okay, that’s not true, but for a while now, I’ve been frustrated with my options. I was this close to giving up on hip-hop.
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