Daniel Dumile (pronounced /duːməleɪ/) is a British-born American hip hop artist who has taken on several stage names in his career, most notably MF DOOM (also known as DOOM) , where the \"MF\" stands for Metal Face or Metal Fingers. He has appeared in several collaborative projects such as Danger Doom (with Danger Mouse) and Madvillain (with Madlib).
Dumile was born on January 9, 1971 in London, England, the son of a Trinidadian mother and Zimbabwean father. He then moved with his family to New York and was raised on Long Island, New York.
As Zev Love X, he formed the group KMD with his younger brother DJ Subroc and another MC called Onyx the Birthstone Kid.[1] A&R rep Dante Ross learned of KMD from the hip hop group 3rd Bass, and signed the group to Elektra Records.
Dumile and KMD's recorded debut came on 3rd Bass's song \"The Gas Face\" from The Cactus Album, followed in 1991 with KMD's album Mr. Hood, which became a minor hit through its singles \"Peachfuzz,\" \"Who Me?\" and heavy video play on cable TV's Yo! MTV Raps and Rap City.
Subroc was struck and killed by a car in 1993 while attempting to cross a Long Island expressway before the release of a second KMD album, titled Black Bastards. The group was subsequently dropped from Elektra Records that same week. Before the release of the album, it was shelved due to controversy over the its cover art, which featured a cartoon of a stereotypical pickaninny or sambo character being hanged from the gallows.
With the loss of his brother, Dumile retreated from the hip-hop scene from 1994 to 1997. He testifies to disillusionment and depression, living \"damn near homeless, walking the streets of Manhattan, sleeping on benches.\" In the late 1990s, he left New York City and settled in Atlanta. According to interviews with Doom, he was also \"recovering from his wounds\" and swearing revenge \"against the industry that so badly deformed him.\" Black Bastards had become bootlegged at the time, leading to Doom's rise in the underground hip-hop world.
In 1998, Dumile began freestyling incognito at open-mic events at the Nuyorican Poets Café in Manhattan, obscuring his face by putting a stocking over his head. He meanwhile had taken on a new identity, MF Doom, (Inspired by his good friend MF Grimm) patterned after and wearing a mask similar to that of Marvel Comics supervillain Doctor Doom. He wears this mask while performing and isn't photographed without it, except for very short glimpses in videos such as Viktor Vaughn's \"Mr. Clean,\" \"Question,\" and in earlier photos with KMD. MF Doom's mask has undergone at least one design revision since its adoption.
