In this video I’m going to be breaking down the mysterious rap style of MF DOOM as I dissect his rap flow from his song DOOMSDAY. I’ve already done an in depth breakdown of the lyrical side of this song so if you haven’t seen you can watch it here.
How To Rap Like MF DOOM
RAP FLOW
Now One major contributing factor to MF DOOM’s unique rap style is his rap flow. It’s very common for rappers to create cadence schemes for their rap flow so that the listener can follow along to them musically. And remember a scheme is when we repeat something such as a rhyme or in this case, a cadence within the same location for at least two bars.
You can also think of schemes as patterns that we repeat which is what causes our raps to sound so polished and catchy to the listener. And as rappers there’s typically 3 patterns that we create and they are often layered on top of each other and that’s a cadence pattern, a rhyme pattern, and a delivery pattern.
And when they’re all layered on top of each other at the same time, I like to refer to these as anchor points. These are the parts of your bars that are very similar and give your raps symmetry and oftentimes anchor points occur around the end of the bar because this is typically where the end rhyme scheme occurs. The other parts of your bars can vary but if you have a solid anchor point established these patterns will make your bars still feel similar enough to not sound random.
CADENCE SCHEMES
What’s interesting about MF DOOM’s rap flow is that he didn’t use a lot of cadence schemes. There’s very little repetition in his rap verses from a cadence perspective. This makes his overall rap flow sound more conversational and doesn’t lean as heavy on musical patterns like many other rappers do. This gives his overall rap flow a more grungy, underground, and raw type of sound.
This is not to say that DOOM didn’t have fantastic musical timing because he certainly did, more on that in just a moment, but his rap verses tended to be more driven by his rhymes and wordplay than they were by strict cadences that he was trying to adhere to.
1st QUADRANT
If we look at the first 4 bars of his verse from DOOMSDAY the only repetition with his cadences are on beats 3 and 4 on bars 3 and 4. Remember the anchor point is usually around the 4th beat because that’s where the end rhyme is usually at. Here DOOM’s rhyme scheme using “Tha Sound” and “a round” are half a beat apart from each other. MF DOOM rarely lined up his rhymes perfectly in time with each other which is another major contributing factor to his raw unpolished type of sound.
Let’s take a listen to that, and the beat I’m using is called Ground Zero you can purchase via this link.
JUICE WRLD
Now let’s compare this quadrant of MF DOOM’s verse to a very different rapper in JUICE WRLD. Notice in this example how JUICE WRLD’s anchor points are much more polished with his rhymes “finished” “didn’t” “bottle” and “swallow” all perfectly lined up in time with each other. Also from a cadence perspective juice WRLD has a lot of repetition here as well. Beats 3 and 4 of all bars are almost identical. And beat 1 and 2 of bars 3 and 4 are nearly identical as well.
Now I’m going to play Juice WRLD’s bars followed directly with MF DOOM’s and pay attention to how different they feel due to Juice WRLD’s polished cadence and end rhyme schemes and MF DOOM’s more loosely placed end rhyme schemes and lack of cadence schemes.
NO RULES!
This is precisely why I alway say, when it comes to rapping there’s no rules, there’s only techniques. Both of these rappers know what they’re doing but are choosing to structure their patterns in different ways.
2nd QUADRANT
SWING
When you’re learning to rap, there’s a lot of emphasis put on learning how to rap on beat. And all beats are 4 divisions of a bar. Once you learn to land on these 4 beats you then will learn how to land on smaller divisions of a bar such as 8th notes and 16th notes.
Another thing I noticed that DOOM liked to use is late swing by landing on the 2nd 16th note of a beat. And this caused hip rap flow to feel more chill and laid back. These are really tricky for beginner rappers to hit because the 2nd 16th note is directly after the 1st beat but before the half beat.
He did this on the 2nd quadrant on beat 1 of bars 1 and 2, and beat 3 of bar 1.
See if you can hear this swing
REMOVING SWING
Now I know that may have been difficult to hear so I’m going to remove the swing and play it back to back with the swing to see if you can hear the difference. Also, if you can’t hear it, try to feel it. Even if you can discern what’s changing it will still feel different and that’s precisely what swing is. It change’s the feeling and texture of your cadence. Let’s check it out
QUADRANT 3 & 4
RHYMES
And if we look at quadrant 3 and 4 of DOOM’s verse you will notice a similar scenario as before. There’s not much of a cadence pattern here, and from a rhyming stand point “you silly” and “two milly” are the only rhymes perfectly aligned in time.
All the other rhyme schemes have this really cool drift to them. These two factors along with DOOM’s heavy use of internal rhymes play a large role into MF DOOM’s unique rap style.
On bar 1 “bility” lands on the 4th beat and on bar 2 “stility” is placed half a beat later and the end of the rhyme carries over into the beginning of the next bar.
“Double” and “trouble” are also about a half a beat apart from each other.
On bars 1 and 2 of the And “black” and “nac” are only about a 16th note from each other so they almost feel like they’re in the same spot.
With all that in mind, let’s take a listen
DOOM’S UNIQUE SOUND
I’ve spent a lot of hours dissecting MF DOOM’s rap style as well as learning about his creative process and here’s my main takeaway. I’m somewhat of a perfectionist who pays attention to very fine details. I tend to structure my rhyme schemes in a very symmetrical way and I love to create cadence schemes. After consuming a lot of DOOM’s music it reminded me that it’s also okay to play around with a more unpolished estetic.
DOOM’s overall sound feels dark, grunge, underground, and raw and that’s what gives it so much character. Just because something is “perfect” doesn’t make it good. Just because something is “technically correct” doesn’t make it right.
Each rapper has their own flavor to bring to the table. And we should all strive to make the music that we want to hear.
Also, if you’re on my mailing list you now have access to the graphics used in this video for both MF DOOM and JUICE WRLD. If you’re not already on my mailing list then make sure you sign up here and you’re also going to get hooked up with a ton of other free goodies such as
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My name is Cole Mize with colemizestudios.com and always remember, when it comes to rapping, there’s no rules, there’s only techniques. Peace!
