hiphopDX x DOOM

HIPHOPDX INTERVIEW HipHopDX: So just to get it out of the way, can you address the recent scandal where you were allegedly sending an impostor to perform in your mask at DOOM concerts? DOOM: [Laughs] Alright. Here's how I look at it, because the wording in there is kinda funny. "Impostor." Impostor would imply that the character. I liken it to this: I'm a director as well as a writer. I choose different characters, I choose their direction and where I want to put them. So who I choose to put as the character is up to me. The character that I hired, he got paid for it. There's no impostor. DX: But the fans are presumably going to see you, as that character. DOOM: That's what they're coming to see? Me? As the character? When I go to a show, I'm going to hear the music. I'm not going to see no particular person. I'm going to hear the music, if I can't see the motherfucker... I might be blind. Any cats that are coming to see me as a physical person, I can switch the [actor] any time. I'm not gonna play the part of that character every time. Like how [actors] changed through the Batman series, where it was George Clooney & it switched like five [other actors]. People need to think outside of the box, Hip Hop is not just what you expect it to be. This is a growing genre, it's a creative field. So when you come to a DOOM show, I'm letting all the cats know now, come to hear the show and come to hear the music. To see me? Y'all don't even know who I am! There are certain times I did shows and shit, I took a year off, and I went back to doing the character. I couldn't find nobody to do the character so last minute I said, "Fuck it, I'll do it." Came back, did the show, lost a little weight. You know, I'm trimming down, watching my diet. I come back, do the show, sound was excellent. But as soon as I get off the stage, they're saying it wasn't me. Alright, it's never me. I'm the writer. It's a show. That's where it's getting twisted in Hip Hop. It's all visual. People want to go see the guy with the big chain who's bragging about all these cars that he has. That's where it gets twisted. This is music. Technology makes it possible for me to still do music and not have to be any particular place. I'm using all that. I'm using every aspect at my disposal to project my creative thoughts. Either people gonna get it or they not. But I'll tell you one thing, if you're coming to a DOOM show, don't expect to see me, expect to hear me or hear the music that I present. And it's gonna be a unique experience every time. So that's all I have to say about that. DX: About the DOOM character, I was always struck by how he started off as a very serious, sort of broken man on Operation Doomsday and has since evolved to become more jokey, more cartoony. Is that something you’ve done consciously? DOOM: Yeah, [on] Operation: Doomsday, the way I presented it was as an introduction from the character from an outside point of view. Way outside. Okay, there's this guy that everybody is calling the super villain. You hardly know anything about him, so you're hearing things, and you gradually get introduced to him through what he puts out as propaganda, what he shows outwardly. Then gradually the [MM]...Food record comes around and at that point you're kinda familiar with the dictatorship side of the character, more serious like, the take-over-the-game conqueror aspect of him. Then you get to the, "Oh, he's not such a bad guy, they call him the villain but, now we get to know him and he seems cool. What's so villainous about this guy?" Right? So with this record, the third installment in the trilogy, there's even a closer, more candid [look]. You already know him. He's your man now, so you don't call him MF DOOM every time, you call him DOOM now. That's the reason for [the name change]. You get into the mind of the character like that's your homeboy. It's almost like from the outside how people can be perceived as being villainous or bad or evil, you know. When you're looking at one thing from a certain perspective it could seem like anything.

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