Viktor Vaughn Vaudville Villain


Ha! Second 6, i told you something from MF Doom would be in here. Vaudville Villain is the second MF Doom album after the infamous Madvillainy demo leak, under the pseudonym Viktor Vaughn. It's about the mundane situations a time traveler stuck in 1990s NYC experiences as he tries to make enough money to fix his time machine and get the hell out of there. Now that, my friends, is a concept.

It occurs to me that maybe you don't know that back then he was a young NYC rapper named Zev Love X, and he was 1/3 of KMD. He adopted the persona of MF Doom a few years after his brother, Subroc, died crossing the Nassau Expressway. Now you know.

I think everyone can agree MF Doom is one of the greatest rappers of all time, but he can be an intimidating listen. One, his rhyme schemes and wordplay are incredibly complex and draw heavily from pop culture, cartoons, sci-fi, and character backstory/mythos. Two, the beats are often bombastic, densly layered, and extremely experimental. Usually he produces his own, but Vaudville Villain uses beats by various producers from Sound-Ink. Three, he's totally willing to use gibberish words and phrases as though they aren't gibberish. It's deceptive how intricate and detailed the songs really are, and you can get completely lost a few second it. 

But wow is it good. It goes right up on the top shelf with Deltron 3030 as one of my personal favorite albums in any genre. A true classic album in every respect. What are you waiting for? Go on out and enjoy it for yourself.

LP 4

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