MF DOOM‘s peers and admirers are still grieving his loss. When his death was announced on New Year’s Eve last year, many lamented the untimely demise of one of the foremost underground rappers in hip-hop and a pioneer for the genre. Run The Jewels member El-P took it a step further during the latest episode of Open Mike Eagle’s Stony Island podcast What Had Happened Was, calling DOOM’s death “a severe blow to the writing world” as a whole.
“I don’t just mean the rap world, lyric writing, [but] human writing,” he clarified. “The world lost an important writer.”
we also spend a few minutes talking about the passing of DOOM. We recorded this episode in early January right after we all learned the news. #DOOMforever pic.twitter.com/L6DtaoIydQ
— open michael eagle (@Mike_Eagle) May 12, 2021
https://twitter.com/emukt/status/1392486000455294985
The episode, which was recorded in early January after the news broke, mainly focuses on El-P’s experience producing Killer Mike’s R.A.P. Music LP, which laid the groundwork for their future partnership as Run The Jewels. It’s part of a multi-part series exploring El-P’s near-30-year career as a producer and rapper, from his beginnings in the New York underground as a member of Company Flow through his work as a label owner and near-mythic figure in the hip-hop world, much like DOOM.
Open Mike Eagle, meanwhile, paid tribute to his fallen collaborator in January, recording and sharing a freestyle borrowing DOOM’s iconic flow and paying tribute to the villain’s penchant for trolling his fans with doubles at one point in his career. You can listen to Open Mike and El-P’s latest episode of What Had Happened Was here.
