spotlight! cartoon doom

By Frank Romero
romerfra@mscd.edu

Danger Doom
The Mouse and the Mask
(Epitaph/Ada)

MF Doom could easily be considered the ultimate outsider of hip-hop. He plies his trade under a metal mask and releases albums devoted entirely to food. His mind houses an entire roster of alter egos-from the man under the mask named Viktor Vaughn to King Geedorah, the three-headed denizen of Monster Island. Now, with the assistance of DJ Danger Mouse, Doom flexes his prodigious muscle on The Mouse and the Mask, a tribute to Cartoon Network's popular Adult Swim series of cartoons.

Doom is his characteristically odd self, as he deftly weaves his labyrinthine rhymes over the ice-cream-sweet beats laid down by Danger Mouse. The pop work ethic demonstrated by Danger Mouse's production work on the Gorillaz Demon Days is evidenced here in the form of the airy beat on the first track "El Chupa Nibre." The track "Sofa King" features a violin that careens tightly through the maze created by Doom's delivery. Danger Mouse provides a light, sometimes cartoonish, counterpoint to Doom's earthy, growly rhyme spitting.

Doom reliably provides what longtime fans have come to expect from him: rhymes that only follow his twisted internal logic. For example, Doom is probably the only MC who could spit: "Everybody talkin' 'bout pistols; gats is borin' / He came with a new topic to flip you, vats of urine." Doom maintains a much lighter tone throughout this album than on his earlier efforts. On "Old School," he is even able to limit the ever serious Talib Kweli to rapping about breakfast cereal. The effusive feeling of cartoons is evident on every track. A sense of innocence is purposefully cultivated through the use of purely aesthetic, strategically placed censor beeps.

The one potential weak spot on the album is the appearance of the Adult Swim cast of characters. However, their between-track skits serve to reinforce the lighthearted feel of the album. While The Mouse and the Mask lacks some of the over-the-top prowess of an unrestrained MF Doom, it is still one of the best hip-hop albums of the year.