His name is DOOM!
Inspired by what DOOM and the Cartoon Network are calling The Missing Notebook Rhymes and in honor of Doom’s contributions to Hip Hop I will be compiling a playlist over the next 15 weeks called; 15 Weeks of Doom!!! The playlist will consist of my top 15 Favorite Doom tracks arranged last to first. Return here to the blog post as I reveal a new song ever Sunday. Please stop by and drop your suggestions in the comment section below.
saffron
The album's title is slightly misleading, in that it is not an entirely new volume: the first installment in the Metal Fingers series, Special Herbs, Vol. 1, appears again as the first nine tracks of Vol. 2, and a note on the cover explains that the latter "contains Volumes 1 & 2". For this reason, the album is also commonly known as Special Herbs, Vols. 1 & 2. The difference in record labels on which the two albums were released explains this quirk.
"Saffron" is an instrumental version of "Doomsday" by MF Doom, from the album Operation: Doomsday.
"Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo!" That's a audio daily double
Rappers need to fall off just to save me the trouble, yo
Watch your own back came in and go out alone, black
Stay in the zone - turn H2O to Cognac
America's Most Blunted
DOOM and Madlib started working on Madvillainy in 2002. Madlib created one hundred beats in a matter of weeks, some of which were used on Madvillainy, some were used on his collaboration album with J Dilla Champion Sound, while others were used for M.E.D.'s and Dudley Perkins' albums. Even though Stones Throw booked DOOM a hotel room, he spent most of the time in Madlib's studio, based in an old bomb shelter in Mount Washington, Los Angeles. When the duo wasn't working on the album, they were spending free time together, drinking beer, eating Thai food, smoking marijuana,[4] and taking psychedelic mushrooms.[5] "Figaro" and "Meat Grinder" were among the songs recorded during this time.[6]
In November 2002, Madlib went to Brazil to participate in a Red Bull Music Academy lecture,[7] where he debuted the first music from the album by playing an unfinished version of "America's Most Blunted".[8] Madlib also went crate digging during his time in Brazil, searching for obscure vinyl records he could sample later, with fellow producers Cut Chemist, DJ Babu, and J.Rocc.[9][10] According to Madlib himself, he bought multiple crates full of vinyl records, two of which he later lost.[9] He used some of these records to produce beats for Madvillainy. Most of the album,[9] including beats for "Strange Ways", "Raid", and "Rhinestone Cowboy", was produced in his hotel room in São Paulo, using a portable turntable, a cassette deck, and a Boss SP-303 sampler.[4] While Madlib was working on the album in Brazil, the unfinished demo was stolen and leaked on the internet, 14 months before its official release. Jeff Jank, Stones
Throw's art director, remembers the leak in the interview with Pitchfork:[4]
"Those were the early days of internet leaks, and we thought it would completely ruin sales. People were approaching DOOM and Madlib at shows to tell them how much they liked the album, so they were like, 'Fuck it, I'm done.' Madlib started on other stuff, and DOOM, well, you never know what he's doing.
DOOM and Madlib decided to work on different projects. Madlib released Champion Sound with J Dilla, while DOOM released two solo albums: Take Me To Your Leader, as King Geedorah, and Vaudeville Villain, as Viktor Vaughn. Nevertheless, after the release of these albums, they decided to return to Madvillainy. For the final version of the album, DOOM altered his voice, described by Peanut Butter Wolf as going from "really hyper, more enthusiastic" to "a more mellow, relaxed, confident, less abrasive", and changed some lyrics to coincide with this change. Madlib was also asked by the label to change some instrumentals, but told them that he forgot the samples he used, in order to allow for them to remain on the album. Additionally, the label also requested the duo make a proper ending for the album, forcing them to rent a studio for the recording of "Rhinestone Cowboy". The beat used, however, was produced in Brazil.
Zatar
Representing the Special Herbs, Vol. 1 & 2 is the track originally called Zatar.
This is a time machine of a song, and for what ever strange reason brings me to my Sesame Street days. When I go do the math, I discover the Anita Baker song "Been So Long" was released in 1986, which pretty much nails it down. This is the exact time period that I would have been tuning in.