MF DOOM’s music was his legend. The man himself was the myth [Video]

2004 was the tipping point for the myth of MF DOOM. The comically sinister rapper, whose 1999 solo debut Operation: Doomsday kicked off a prolific rise from label castoff to if-you-know-you-know sensation, sealed his indie-rap god status that year with four albums across four independent labels and a handful of personas, capped by the vaunted Madlib collaboration Madvillainy on Stones Throw Records. Few hip-hop LPs are so preceded by their reputations, two solitary geniuses from separate coasts linking for a one-off alliance through incredible kismet: DOOM had entered a self-imposed exile after the tragic demise of his Elektra group, KMD, in 1994, vanished again for years after the label that released Operation: Doomsdaywent under in 2001, and was located only by chance, incommunicado in Kennesaw, Ga., through a friend of a friend of Stones Throw’s general manager. Whether by coincidence or fate, the discovery brought about one of the great independent triumphs of the 21st century, a record of near-perfect rapper-producer synergy that set a new high water …