100 Greatest Songs of the 20’s So Far #88 Open Mike Eagle – For Doom

Released: 2021

When you carve out such a legend for yourself, pass away in a hip-hop obscure place in secret, then it isn’t announced for months afterwards, you can expect a little shock and disbelief. So it was for MF Doom, an artist who dusted underground rap with the sort of mystique it needed to reinvent itself for a new century. And then he was gone.

Talking in 2022 with RTJ‘s El-P (A man who knew something about the underground game himself via his work with Company Flow) Project Blowed and Thirsty Fish member Mike Eagle expressed the profound nature of the loss of his hero, to which his interviewee replied that knowing the man, he wouldn’t be surprised if he rose again.

Tributes were due, and nobody could be in much doubt to who For Doom was dedicated. Having come from being a fan to a collaborator, this eulogy played out to a Dilla-esque crate dug sample, whilst lines like “In my bedroom crying like a soul-broken whelpling/The news, it knocked it out me like Ronda Rousey” made us all feel his pain. He might rise again though, he might just rise again.