Shadows of Tomorrow: PENPALS' Emcee Rapswell & Producer Squires Pay Tribute to MF DOOM with "Skullcap" (Metal Fingers Tribute)

Honestly, it doesn't even feel like there's a proper way to elegize an eccentric and extremely talented artist such as MF DOOM, who meant so much to so many of us for so many years for so many different reasons as truly unique as DOOM himself. So, what better way to pay tribute to The Man, The Myth, THE MASK himself than by speaking to those closest to him? With a heavy heart, I proudly present Shadows of Tomorrow; a new recurring column in tribute to DOOM in an effort to re-tell the tall tales, strange stories, and lesser-known tidbits of The Metal Face Villain himself. R.I.P. Daniel "MF DOOM" Dumile Thompson.

"DOOM has been one of my biggest influences since I first heard KMD & Operation: Doomsday. Besides having some of the best wordplay and beats, he showed that originality has no limits and rules are meant to be broken. He created worlds and his passing hit me harder than any musician in recent memory. I just started listening to a lot of his [Metal Fingers] Special Herbs instrumentals and wrote that verse and recorded it on the "Licorice" beat. Then, Squires came in and made his dope version [with] the acapella."

- Rapswell (@MCRapswell)


"The news of DOOM's passing hit us pretty hard, as I know it did for many. The influence of his work has been there in my music, probably, since I first started making beats. [Rapswell] hit me up, maybe, the day after we heard he passed with the idea of doing some kind of tribute and, to be honest, I was pretty hesitant. It would really need to sound right and feel right for me to be OK with putting anything out. I kind of sat on that idea for a little while, but as I continued to make beats, I started realizing a lot of them were inspired by DOOM in some way or another. Maybe, a couple weeks later, [Rapswell] sent me his verse over a [Metal Fingers] Special Herbs beat and it was really good. It's the same recording we ended up using. I stumbled on that sample and put something together pretty quickly last weekend; went back to it a few days later and it still felt right to me. The way it all came together felt right."

- Squires (@sonofsquires)