The rap collective’s second album is being reissued to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
MF DOOM’s Metalface Records has announced the reissue of KMD’s Black Bastards album. KMD – comprised of MF DOOM (as Zev Love X) and the late artist’s brother DJ Subroc – recorded Black Bastards in 1993, before the passing of DOOM’s brother led to the postponing of the project’s release. The lyrical content of the album, alongside its contentious artwork, led to Elektra Records delaying the its release to 2000. The reissue acknowledges the original year of recording, 1993.
The vinyl reissue lands on 31 March via Metalface Records and Rhymesayers Entertainment. The anniversary release arrives alongside a re-release of DOOM’s debut solo album Operation: Doomsday, which turns 24 this year. Merch is available via the MF DOOM official website.
Speaking about his collaborative process with Crack Magazine back in 2014, DOOM said: “I don’t really base [collaborations] on whether the person is well known, or whether they have a lot of money. If the music don’t sound right, then it just don’t feel right. It’s about something else, there has to be chemistry there, it needs to be organic”.
In our retrospective on MF DOOM’s collaborative album with Madlib, Madvillainy, we wrote: “Commercially successful and critically adored, Madvillainy merged esoteric interests with broader themes, both insider nods and approachable punchlines folded into the mix.”
“An unlikely highlight, track Accordion evokes the titular instrument as a melodic device over which Doom delivered his comic book baddie bars. While previous record Operation: Doomsday had introduced MF Doom’s supervillain persona, it took Madlib’s wildly inventive production style on Madvillainy to make the character iconic, echoing the work of revered comic book writers Frank Miller and Alan Moore.”
In 2021, a podcast entitled Did I Ever Tell You The One About… MF DOOM began, looking into the rapper’s life and legacy after his passing in 2020. In the same year, a street in Long Beach, New York was renamed KMD – MF DOOM Way to honour the enduring legacy of the elusive underground rapper.
You can pre-order the reissues via MF DOOM’s website, and listen to a tribute mix from former Crack Magazine cover stay KeiyaA below.
