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When the late rapper MF DOOM came to Philadelphia in 2001, he fell in with a group of eccentric artists who had carved out an odd space for themselves in Chinatown at 1026 Arch St.
Called Space 1026, it was where DOOM started to put together one of his celebrated albums “Vaudeville Villain” under the alias Viktor Vaughn.
“It’s a really futuristic album. I think only now people are getting that album,” said S.H. Fernando, Jr., aka SKIZ, author of the new DOOM biography “The Chronicles of DOOM.”
“I think initially when it first came out people were, like, ‘What the hell is this?’” he said.
DOOM, aka Daniel Dumile, was in an exceptionally fertile creative period at the time. Between 2000 and 2005, he released eight albums on eight independent labels under (at least) three pseudonyms.
Although sometimes considered “underground,” in part because he performed as a character based on a comic book villain wearing a metal mask, DOOM was a huge presence in the hip-hop world before he died in 2020 at age 49 due to complications from kidney disease medication.
A DOOM track even ended up on President Joe Biden’s inauguration playlist in 2021.
So how did a major musician wind up with a bunch of “weirdos” on Arch Street adjacent to a Chinatown bus parking lot?
“Here’s this legendary rap guy who had gone through his third incarnation of identities, and he’s friends with all these weird punk rock, hippie and bike messenger-styled graffiti-writing guys and girls,” said Cosmo Baker, a longtime Philadelphia DJ.
“Strange bedfellows, absolutely,” he said. “There’s something to be said about people who view themselves as outcasts, ‘rejects,’ but wearing that term as a badge of honor.”
The unauthorized “The Chronicles of DOOM” is the first comprehensive telling of Dumile’s life, from his birth in London, childhood in Long Island, and his first forays into hip hop in the group KMD with his younger brother Subroc, who tragically died at 19 after getting hit by a car.
The death of his brother and his disdain for record labels drove Dumile to drop out of the world of hip hop, becoming “damn near homeless” in Manhattan.
He returned as an entirely new persona fueled by comic books and a general distrust of the music industry. As DOOM, Dumile donned a mask that was both protective and ferocious.
“He had his bout with fame early on when he was a teenager in high school and he didn’t enjoy it,” SKIZ said. “So he said, ‘If there is the next time I come back, I’m going to come back with the mask cover my face.’”
In 2001, DOOM came to Philadelphia to perform at Fluid, a nightclub off South Street where Baker was then running his weekly Remedy hip-hop night. Although it was a Monday, the club was sold out with hundreds of people.
When it came time to perform, Dumile opened a metal attache case he always carried with him and took out the infamous mask. Baker had never seen such a total personality transformation, before or since.
“After hours of spending time with him during this first trip to Philadelphia, and him being the kindest, sweetest, most gracious dude that you could imagine,” he said. “I have never witnessed in my life such an extraordinary metamorphosis in front of me, where he legitimately transformed from Daniel to the villain MF DOOM. His aura, his stance, his attitude, his affect: he became the villain.”
The performance that followed has become a storied part of hip-hop lore: after the show MF DOOM reportedly chased a group of hecklers into the alleyway behind Fluid and beat them, using his metal attaché case to knock one of them out.
The incident has been immortalized as “Monday Night at Fluid,” written as a “public service warning” by King Ghidra, another alias of Dumile.