MF Dues
Boston Celtics at The SinclairOpen Mike Eagle remembers MF Doom at The Sinclair on Wednesday, 13 December 2023.
Pink Navel captures playful in the opening slot.
Daniel Dumile, AKA MF Doom, passed away in 2020.
The hip hop artist was born in London in 1971; lived most of his life in America without ever acquiring US citizenship; and was denied re-entry at the border in 2010 after returning home from an international tour.
And just like that one of the greatest rappers of his generation was told to piss off.
If he was a model, or at least the secret affair of a wealthy businessman, he could acquire an O-1 visa to gain re-entry. That would give a temporary pass to visit, which probably is not what a guy who built an entire life with family and friends in New York and elsewhere.
You might think MF Doom would qualify for an E-2 visa, for “persons of exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business.” He was returning from an international tour, sitting atop an esteemed discography, including the monumental album Madvillainy (2004). By the time he was denied re-entry to the US, he had already changed hip hop, and looked poised for more.
It can be tough on artists to qualify for these “employment based” visas though. You need an employer with an institutional kind of presence, and good lawyers, and the spare money to use those lawyers to help expedite visa applications to obtain those types of visas.
If you’re some foreign national artist being brought to the USA for a temporary cultural exchange, there are monied organizations out there dedicated to making it happen. Global Arts Live – the Boston-area world music initiative – is not that sort of organization. But consider them at least part of a larger food chain of organizations who create a pipeline for admitting artists from abroad into America on the basis of their exceptional ability.
Much harder, though, to get into that pipeline if you’re a rapper who grew up in Long Island than, say, a balafon player from Mali. The Malian will probably go home at the end of the trip, but the guy with family and friends in the country is probably going to want to stay.
Plus, how much weight does a hip hop artist’s “employer” have compared with these monied cultural grant institutions? Who is a rapper’s “employer” anyway? A label that he made an album with once or twice. Seems likely shaky ground on which to apply for the employment-based visa whether MF Doom has “exceptional ability” or not.
Was there another kind of visa or alternative path to getting back to the US? Didn’t seem like it was a goal for the artist, though, according to a 2012 interview. Who knows. That’s just one thing he said to one interviewer one time. You grow up your whole life in a country – can you really shrug it off just two years after they closed the door on you?
Maybe some people can, maybe some people pretend they can because it’s the best of bad options.
Pink Navel
MF Doom was on the house mix all night. You probably recognized a few songs. We’re past the reflexive shock stage of a celebrated artist’s passing, in which everyone comes out of the woodwork to throw up the RIP on their social media, and their hits get played on repeat. (We’re in that stage with Shane MacGowan). We’re past the public mourning bonanza.
Pink NavelWe’re now in the slower burning stage of private mourning. Those who were close to the artist IRL have less wellwishers taking the time to express condolences as time marches on. And that hurts. Not because you need strangers telling you how sorry they are for you. But because acknowledging the public mourning rituals is a kind of welcome administrative duty that pulls you away from the more painful work of processing your own grief.
But that’s where we’re at with the private mourning. And those close to the artist have that daily task waiting for them.
For the rest of us who were not close to the artist, but simply appreciated the music, there are different ways to keep the memorial lamplights lit.
If you’re a music maker, it might be taking a lesson or two from an icon.
If you’re a music critic, it might be tracing the lines of influence from the artist to the rest of the world. Mapping that influence like one of those maps from the ancient world that included points of interest like the Mouth to Hades, the Turtle’s Back, and the Tree of Life. You know, one of those maps that include the underworld and overworld all at once. Because the dead walk among us, and we’re not talking zombies.
MF Doom would have liked Pink Navel’s set. They’re both playful dudes.
Open Mike Eagle
The Los Angeles-based hip hop artist Open Mike Eagle paid respects to MF Doom with a singalong portion of the set. Not a cover, not an interpretation. A singalong to one of the celebrated rapper’s tracks. Crowd participation encouraged.
Open Mike EagleAnother MF Doom moment. Open Mike Eagle shared an anecdote about his move from Carbondale, IL to Los Angeles, driving in a car with only two tapes on the long journey: Madvillainy and something by They Might Be Giants. That’s quite a combo.
But let’s not let the Carbondale part of the story pass without comment. Looks like he did college and some grad school at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. For a guy that grew up in Chicago, Carbondale must have been a trip. A bad trip. The university town in the southern part of the state is a long way from the metropolitan hub of the Midwest. Some good people down there, but kind of dreary. Push come to shove, he probably would have made the drive to LA with no tapes in the car. There’s always the radio.
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