Inspired by the Marvel Comics supervillain, Dr. Doom, MF Doom uses a metal mask while performing and refuses to be photographed without it ("MF" stands for "metal face").
The release of Operation: Doomsday in 1999 by independent label Fondle 'Em marked the official turning point for Dumile in his reinvention of himself from a major label recording artist of minor status to independent artist, where he would find his greatest success while maintaining the most control over his music.
Operation: Doomsday was received very well by underground listeners and was re-released in 2000. Starting in 2002, he began releasing albums of instrumental work, a series known as Special Herbs for several small record labels under the name Metal Fingers. In 2003 he created the alter-egos King Geedorah and Viktor Vaughn to release two new albums and contribute to another. The same year, he also worked on the debut album by the Monsta Island Czars, a group consisting of MF Grimm and several underground New York rappers.
MF DOOM's first commercial breakthrough came in 2004, with the album Madvillainy with producer Madlib under the group name Madvillain. Released by Stones Throw Records, the album was a minor critical and commercial success, hailed as a classic by some for its excellent beats and abstract rhymes. Late in the year, he released MM..Food? with the Minnesota-based underground label Rhymesayers Entertainment, using various food items to metaphorically explain life and his own complex personality. As Viktor Vaughn he released Venomous Villain (also called VV2), an album which received mixed reviews for its length (33 minutes) and the fact that he only rapped for, in total, ten minutes.
In 2005 MF DOOM took another step towards the commercial mainstream while maintaining his control as an independent artist with The Mouse and the Mask, a collaboration with producer DJ Danger Mouse under the group name DangerDoom, was released on October 11, 2005, which uses characters from Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. He also voiced the giraffe named Sherman in Adult Swim's Perfect Hair Forever. MF DOOM also worked with Ghostface Killah in a collaboration album.
courtesy of wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MF_Doom
