doom in toronto

If you're a fan of my blog, you will now that I'm a huge fan of MF Doom. He was here last week. It was known as one of the craziest shows in Toronto Hip Hop history. My homie Mindbender did a blog about it. Here it is. Let me preface this by saying that I've been part of many Hip Hop shows in my life and I never heard about such a crazy show like this. I wish I was there...Check the original post here

Here is my MF DOOM CONCERT REVIEW. I wrote this last night when I got home. It’s the morning after, and I still can’t believe what happened yesterday was real. I’ve seen lots and lots of crazy rap shit in my life, but this tops them all, in so many ways. Peace to Rome, Natasha, Zera, Jonathan Ramos, D-Sisive, Darryl Rodway, Kyle, Philip, the Mindbender fans I saw, and all the other people there. And I hope Linx and Taktiks rest well today. Shit was FUCKED UP @ Kool Haus last night. To be there was to witness history and hell collide.

Enjoy the review. I hope you feel what I felt there. And I hope we all never feel it again. MF DOOM is doing something that nobody else on the planet is doing. Shit is beyond insane or genius, it’s a whole new dimension of art and music and performance and… sonic suicide.

This is what I wrote when I got home.

In love,

Mindbender



“It’s is 4:00 AM.
I am now coming home from one of the most bizarre rap concerts I have ever seen in my motherfucking life.
One day, I will look back and say “now it makes sense.”
and either there will be music to explain tonight, or Doom will have done something so unthinkably insane that his story just implodes into…
fuck if i know
FUCK IF DOOM KNOWS!

i’ve never seen such chaos. creative chaos, but unchained chaos molotov cocktails of songs nevertheless.
let it be known, I love the guy, I rocked with him in NYC in 2000, I saw him at Madvillain a few years ago, I jammed to KMD as a youth. i’m truly no hater. but what DOOM did tonight was beyond rational explanation. i will never be able to find the range of words needed to describe the extremes of emotion and intensity that were manifested at the Kool Haus tonight. cause he was there. the REAL DOOM. and then some.
i’ve been wracking my brain walking home trying to figure out where all this is going. and i question if he knows. cause to manipulate and frustrate and instigate what went down in Toronto honesty crossed multiple boundaries, probably legal, illegal, and certainly professional… and ethical, to be honest.

i have never felt like my head was being so fucked with. EVER in my life.

this has to be emphasized to understand the night. DOOM is truly an insane psychopathic genius… VILLAIN. is he quietly (cause he doesn’t advertise much, his new music just kinda appears, sporadically) campaigning to become the most HATED yet loved man in hip hop? this DOOMPOSTER shit needs clarification. REALLY FUCKING SOON. Mos Def did not perform here, NY was cancelled, and this email goes out this evening:



Quote: We want to let everyone know that the real Doom is in Canada. His identity has been confirmed by Canada Customs. Get down to the Kool Haus and don’t miss this rare chance to check out DOOM.

He took a bit longer than expected to clear immigration, but we hope to have him on stage in about an hour.

Spread the word!


people are STILL skeptical. this is the same cursed venue as the first ‘Rock the Bells’ in Toronto 4 years ago, where only EPMD showed up, as Raekwon, Smif N Wessun and Redman, among others all got -cancelled-, and right before the show started, someone in the crowd threw a bottle of Heineken in DJ Scratch’s face, hitting his nose first, then spilling onto his laptop, ruining the computer and killing the show.everyone paid 50 bucks to see ONE group now, whose DJ just walked off stage covered in beer and disrespected harshly. the show must go on, right? so a local DJ played EPMD instrumentals. Erick and Parrish did 3 songs, said ‘fuck this’ and threw their mics down. SHOW OVER. that place was one swear word away from a full on MURDER RIOT.

just want you to know that… the same hate was in the air, times five tonight. No Mos Def. So, one opening act: D-Sisive. Finishes at 10:30 to a calm crowd. I just get in. DJs are playing music, spin at one of the biggest college radio shows in town. playing mostly 90’s rap music. time elapses. i hear quiet boos. meh. talk to friends. DJs keep playing… but people KEEP booing. start chanting for DOOM. then… start throwing beer cans. plastic cups. beer. random shit. within 30 minutes, the stage is littered. barbacks are cleaning it every few minutes. motherfuckers start SHOUTING for the show to start. and something i may have never seen in my life happened: the president of REMG, biggest promoter in town comes on the mic and declares: “The real DOOM IS here. He made it in the border. Relax. He will be on in 15 minutes.” People scream and boo as beer is thrown at the guy on the mic. (extremely disrespectful, considering who the guy is: Jonathan Ramos)

and then the college DJs, Taktiks and Linx, start playing music… and crowd starts BOOING EVERYTHING they play, demanding Doom. They scream so loud for the DJs to stop playing, one DJ gets off the turntables and challenges the crowd “you come do it better!” and people throw crazy shit. Stage is a mess. Doom is nowhere to be found. Doesn’t feel good.

more time goes by. shit is feeling grim. (no pun intended). it got so bad, the DJs were booed off the turntables, so they just put in the Cuban Linx 2 disc. you know how it’s all eq’ed kinda crazy, right? all the random extra loud overdubs and ~gunshots~ just irritate the anxious people more and more. it’s just kinda close to Doom music, but not, and it’s been nearly 2 hours since the last performer was rapping. tickets were like 45 if not 50 bucks. maybe 900-1000 people, a strong turnout…. of people whose emotions were getting played with like i’ve never seen.

nobody knows what’s going on. i’m talking to people backstage who are telling me how “Doom is at the hotel, not even at the venue yet, but… getting in a cab now”… holy headfuck, Batman! really? no, really? this is past the point of insanity now. nobody believes anybody. the crowd is booing hell between every single song on Raekwon. shit is chaos. bouncers are wrestling pissed off people. what the fuck??

at some future moment that felt way past eternity, a DJ gets on the tables. kinda feels like it might happen. he sets up, and…

‘Accordion’ drops. YEEEEAH! Rap-like dudes are backstage, coming on! Word up!!

Okay: a DOOM runs out.

short guy. in a mask.

who didn’t say nothing during the spoken intro. WTF!!! lip synching!

DOOMPOSTER sighting. Grrrr! people start BOOOOOOOING VICIOUSLY.

THEN ANOTHER DOOM runs out! Rapping!! And it sounds like the real DOOM! Praise Rakim Allah, it’s the real thing now!

Show’s on. Doom starts rapping. Loud. Crazy. Non-stop.

And… it was one of the most erratic, confusing, headbanging, off balance, crowd pleasing? experiences i have ever been to in my life. it was about 45 minutes. i heard some random Dangerdoom shit. He did some Madvillain songs. shit off ‘Mmm… Food’, ‘Ballskin’, then like 30 minutes into the non-stop assault of un-mic-checked rap bangers, he let some new ‘King Geedorah’ stuff play, as he talked over it. He had a humongous black dude with a tied-back afro as a hype man, as the other fake Doom stood beside the DJ all night with a camoflage stocking on his face (hype mime?). it was the real Doom, rocking rhymes crazy, but… it was CRAZY. something was off. many things were, actually.
the timing with the DJ: off.
crowd interaction (until the end): off.
show structure: off.
lights of logic: off
i had no idea what i was seeing. it wasn’t wack, but holy fuck… Doom is self-destructing just a fraction less than he’s creating.
the crowd was mostly satiated, but a few things got thrown at Doom still.
one was a t-shirt, that he caught perfectly, and incorporated into his show.
another recurring moment of surreality was when someone kept punching two blue balloons towards Doom’s face while he was rapping… and he kept punching them back. over and over. without missing a word. just zany. Doom rhyming and punching and kicking balloons while he says “go pop like snot bubbles.”
but why no ‘Operation: Doomsday’?
and… why did your DJ’s solitary laptop shut off in the middle of one of your songs, while you spit acapella… then started kinda rambling to the crowd, with the hype man backing it up… then why did the DJ -leave the stage- after failing to drop any new music in about 3 minutes (of dead air) with Doom completely unaware his DJ has left. It kinda spun out of all control at this point, and Doom started up random beats playing minutes later, with no DJ, just rocking whatever. There was no continuous thread through the show, it was just one unpredictable musical moment after another. Then it ended?

This was the point in the night where abruptly Doom left the stage. We all wondered if it was over… then after a minute, you overhear him say “yo, i just had to go take a piss, i’ll be back!”. It was kinda doubtful if he would be, you could feel it. But, he returned. And started rocking the show. Truly odd.

Then the DJ came back and they did another song or two. Doom left again, barely saying peace or even looking at the crowd when he left (but honestly, during 2/3rds of the show, he was pretty energetic and interactive with the crowd. Dousing them with water at one point, then himself, then his huge hype man. Nutty.) But he just kinda disappeared.

At this point, the DJ goes “uh… should I go get him?”

everyone goes “YEAH! DOOM, DOOM!”

the DJ honestly looks like he’s not sure he can get Doom back out. this was the most hasty and unscripted encore i have ever seen… or these guys just don’t give a fuck on a new level. the DJ came back, put a song on, Doom came out, rapped on it, then bounced real quick, saying ‘love ya’ll, peace i’m out!’ before anyone could really hear what he was saying.

the stage was empty. the music stopped. show’s over now? uh, okay. guess that’s enough. but what a crazy ending. middle. and beginning.

there is video footage that will come. i got some but it’s late.
tomorrow’s a new day.

thing is, it wasn’t a bad show. and it was the real MF DOOM. AND he DID stand on stage with another fake DOOM, which is a sight i will always remember. (but he didn’t explain -nothing- about that whole shit, of course.) so, it wasn’t bad. but it was certainly kinda fucked up, to say the least.

i thought of dozens of reasons why this happened like this. is Doom trying to be the most hated MC of all-time, the slow-fashioned way? nobody will forget that night. i know i won’t. i was angry, but i was also happy. what is his masterplan? he’s not more famous than Mos Def. this tour went tits up, no disrespect, but it collapsed. Doom ain’t in movies with Diddy and Halle. can he afford to do this? yes, the show went on. looks like they made money. but the height of frustration that things went to make me question where things will go from here. he’s dope, but is he dope enough to keep doing this insane shit? can it all be forgiven with a really, REALLY dope DOOMPOSTER album? this shit is beyond anything i’ve ever seen. Doom is really off the deep end now. I just had to put this down cause I mean every word, this was one of the most insane shows of all time.

and all i know is rap is fucking out of control more than any of us know.

peace to Mos Def and to the Screwface Capital.

peace to rap rap rap

Doom is up to something diabolically, unbelievably, incomprehensibly sinister.

Here is my other homeslice, D-Sisive, who was the opening act, view of the night..