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American underground rap iconoclast Doom (formerly MF Doom) releases his new album Born Like This. on Lex Records tomorrow, March 24th. The U.K.-born, New York-raised rapper’s LP features contributions from Ghostface Killah, Raekwon and the beats of late production genius J Dilla, and represents seven years of work recorded on and off at home in Atlanta. Thom Yorke recently remixed sexy single “Gazillion Ear” and funky, Jake One-produced “Ballskin” is bouncing across the major music blogs. The centerpiece of the record is “Cellz”, which explodes with apocalyptic fury. On it, the late, great American poet Charles Bukowski reads of one of his best poems, “Dinosauria, We,” for almost two minutes while missiles fire and the Earth is laid to waste.
(Listen to the whole album, after the jump!)
“Don’t freak with old Buke. Buke is nice. He’s as good as the rest of the rappers on there,” Doom says. “He kind of sets the tone for the record, being that we’re living in what he was kind of describing. He might’ve been reaching for the worst description based on what he saw us heading to, but it happened and that made me go, ‘Wow, that’s ill. Kinda prophetic words.’ ”
With a career modeled on the Marvel comics arch-villain Doctor Doom, the metal mask-wearing fortysomething remains characteristically cryptic about future live dates. “I tell you one thing: when you come to a Doom show, come expecting to hear music, don’t come expecting to see. You never know who you might see. It has nothing to do with a visual thing. Use your mind and think. I might be there. Next time I do a show, I might tell everybody to close they eyes. Use your own mind’s eye. That’s better than a camera phone, know what I’m sayin’?’ ”
He says Michael Jackson — who just sold out 50 shows in the U.K. — might be doing the same thing. “Word. That nigga was crazy as hell. How do you even know he’s still him? He might’ve been doing the technique.”