From The New Yorker in 2009:

Hip-hop feeds on the aggression of post-pubescent males. And Dumile draws on the aggression of a particular type of male who came of age in a particular era. When he claims to “eat rappers like part of a complete breakfast,” when he challenges other m.c.s to battle for Atari cartridges, when he yells “Zoinks!” mid-rhyme, he’s signalling those who grew up with Saturday-morning cartoons and “The Dukes of Hazzard.” For his listeners, his references—“Good Times,” popping wheelies, karate classes—evoke lost innocence, even when the topic is grim.

My childhood could not have been more different than Dumile’s (or Coates’s) but we’re roughly of the same generation and his music, with its pop culture throwbacks and nerdy sidetracks, always felt close. I didn’t discover MF DOOM until 2003 or so, as he was cementing his prolific genius, and it subtly but definitively altered my view of art, creativity, and hip-hop. DOOM was truly inimitable, a singular artist. Rest In Peace.