'Special Herbs' Is a Daunting But Fascinating Image of MF DOOM

For the latter half of the 2010’s, the most popular instrumental hip-hop artist in the world was an animated Japanese girl, studying next to her cat and window tirelessly. Lofi Girl (formerly ChilledCow) offered a 24/7 stream of vague and insignificant lo-fi hip-hop beats against a looping animation borrowed from the Studio Ghibli film Whisper of the Heart (the channel was created by a French man). The stream quickly became popular amongst sleep-deprived college students, third-wave coffee shops, and political figures hoping to gain a bit of steam. The channel ranks a step above the current lo-fi AI slop littering streaming services now; there are real artists behind the tracks, credited on screen as it played. But as far as anonymous and insignificant music went, Lofi Girl was the major player in modern Muzak.

Lofi Girl cemented an idea within instrumental hip-hop, especially its lo-fi iterations, that the format was meant to be a fairly insignificant way to fill a room. It’s a far cry from how instrumental hip-hop came to be a common product, first via the dense plunderphonics of DJ Shadow and turntablist experiments of Mix Master Mike and DJ Qbert, then through the vast amount of releases from now-famed beatmakers like J Dilla, Madlib, RDJ2, Blockhead, Nujabes, Pete Rock, and many, many, many more. Though all of the aforementioned producers realized the artistic and commercial potential of their instrumentals, rap’s villain-in-chief, MF DOOM, became the first to realize the affective potential of a high-quantity/quality collection of beats. Special Herbs doesn’t promise four uninterrupted hours of deeply enthralling material, but, when heard in the right contexts and read through the right lenses, the newly reissued collection becomes a powerful player in MF DOOM’s storied catalog.

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The new reissue comes via DOOM’s own Metalface Records and Rhymesayers Entertainment, the indie hip-hop label that’s been working closely with the rapper’s estate on reissues since his death in 2020. One of many aliases weaponized by Daniel Dumile during his lifespan, the collection was originally credited to Metal Fingers, whereas this latest release credits the collection to MF DOOM, as Metal Fingers Presents: Special Herbs. The records were previously reissued by Brooklyn indie rap label Nature Sounds, in a boxset that truncated the series to fit on two discs (that version, arguably the easiest way to hear Special Herbs in its entirety, is missing from the current reissue).

The collection itself corroborates the story of a deeply prolific artist, especially considering the period of DOOM’s career during which Special Herbs arrived. The music, originally released semi-annually between 2001 and 2005, traversed the most memorable period of DOOM’s career. During the era, he re-issued Operation: Doomsday and the two KMD records to a wider audience via the short-lived underground hip-hop label Sub Verse in 2001; released Take Me To Your Leader and Vaudeville Villain as King Geedorah and Viktor Vaughn respectively in 2003; had, possibly, the best year of any rapper ever with the dual release of Madvillainy (with Madlib) and MM…Food in 2004; and encored with the still-excellent The Mouse and The Mask collaboration with Danger Mouse and the beloved Adult Swim programming block.

In its entirety, Special Herbs is a daunting collection, spanning 72 tracks across a 200-plus-minute runtime. Even though it was originally released across five years, the aggregation of the material as one discrete project now offers a sprawling view of a singular sonic visionary. Even compared to DOOM’s instrumental contemporaries like Prince Paul, Madlib, and Peanut Butter Wolf, his ingenuity shines in little moments that allow his production to remain unparalleled. The laissez-faire groove of the beats chug onward into infinity like a casual Can jam. DOOM is most forthright on the drums, where stuttering hats and unequal kicks feel almost like verbal communication, as heard on the manic opening and subsequent unconventional patterns on “Valerian Root.” The beats are rife with DOOM’s little quirks, whether it’s the “clack-clack-clack-clack-clack” snare pattern he liberally employs, or vocal monologues ripped from old-school children’s cartoons.

Across much of Special Herbs, sonic remnants of DOOM’s sources and influences are audible: “Vinca Rosea” combines swinging organ stabs with a rich female voice, creating a groovier iteration of gospel music; “Lavender Buds” has all the elements of a classic disco track released during the Salsoul or Casablanca label heydays; soaring strings, swooning vocals lamenting romance, and a dynamic, coked-out bass line. It’s these moments that also work best as standalone numbers. When DOOM lets a chorus or verse loop across a track, he breathes an extraordinary amount of life into small hits of electric piano or a quiet guitar lick. Listening from the vantage of digital production, where catalogue snippets from the likes of Anita Baker, Galt MacDermot, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Boz Scaggs, the 5th Dimension, and Isaac Hayes are stretched, quantized, reversed, looped, crushed, cleaned, and otherwise molecularized with a few clicks on the trackpad, the power of a few good loops stacked atop one another is on full display across Special Herbs.

The seedlings for Special Herbs were planted when Peter Agoston—a West Coast hip-hop journalist, future music industry jack-of-all-trades, and vinyl purist—offered to release an instrumental version of Operation: Doomsday, a fairly rousing success in the underground following its 1999 release. Instead, DOOM offered to do an entire series of instrumental albums—ten, to be exact. The release format indicated that, far from a cash grab, the Special Herbs series was released for purist enjoyment and utility. Female Fun Records, Agoston’s newly minted record label, pressed a thousand copies of Special Herbs, Vol. 1 exclusively on vinyl, “anticipat[ing] an interest in purely instrumental hip-hop that eventually became a thing later on,” wrote S.H. Fernando Jr. in his recent DOOM-ography, The Chronicles of DOOM.

Though the tapes were released during instrumental hip-hop’s first significant era, coinciding with records like RJD2’s Deadringer, Prefuse 73’s Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives, Madlib’s Shades of Blue, and even international iterations like Nujabes’ Samurai Champloo soundtrack, the Special Herbs tapes became a massive influence on beat scenes across the country. Once producers realized there was a market for their music as standalone material, rather than simple accompaniment to rappers, a new generation of talents like Knxwledge and Flying Lotus rose to stardom equal to their MC peers.

Indeed, it may be more apt to describe Special Herbs as a “beats tape,” rather than an “instrumental hip-hop album.” Compared to the dense sampledelia of records like DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing….. and J Dilla’s Donuts, the material across Special Herbs relies on straightforward samples compressed into simple loops. The collection’s most naked moments—“Coffin Nails,” “Monosodium Glutamate,” and “Jasmine Blossoms”—were all eventually transformed into DOOM’s most iconic songs: “Rapp Snitches Knishes,” “Rhymes Like Dimes,” and “Hoe Cakes.” When the guitar finishes on “Coffin Nails” and Mr. Fantastik’s slick hook fails to materialize, it’s almost upsetting, as if you’ve arrived too late for his set.

In the case of other early instrumental hip-hop records, like Endtroducing….., it would’ve been jarring to hear rappers hop on precisely orchestrated material like “Building Steam With A Grain of Salt.” But it’s obvious that, during the beatmaking process, DOOM meant for this material to end up on rap records. Four of the nine tracks on Volume 1 were instrumentals taken from Operation Doomsday, which had been out for over two years by that point. Many old KMD instrumentals appear across the collection. The music of Special Herbs was not only offered to DOOM’s contemporaries, like Ghostface Killah, MF Grimm, and MC Paul Barman, but also later used by his acolytes. Joey Bada$$ famously borrowed “Pennyroyal” for an excellent eponymous track on his old-school worship record 1999. In 2012, Masta Ace released MA Doom: Son of Yvonne, sourcing the beats entirely from the Special Herbs series with blessing from DOOM himself, who released Special Blends Volume 1 & 2—a remix album that paired famous acapellas with his own beats (Erykah Badu’s “On and On” with “Lovage,” “Method Man” with “White Willow Bark,” De La Soul’s “Stakes is High” with “Sumac Berries”)—in 2024.

As a document of MF DOOM’s life, Special Herbs is a fascinating text that finds him at his most vulnerable. Considering how much of his impression was built behind a mask, a collection of music that frankly displays his influences, interests, and productivity is immensely valuable. He also lets authentic personality, humor, and affection loose across the records, a rarity for the MC that doesn’t necessarily filter his instrumental work through the same cynicism and comedy as his lyrical material. These discs signal one of the few times DOOM candidly communicated his passion and the depths to which it plumbed.

“The interesting thing is that it doesn’t sound at all mechanical or mathematical as you would imagine. It sounds like some guy is sitting there playing the piano with quite [an] intense feeling,” Brian Eno said, while preparing his seminal ambient masterpiece, Music for Airports. Special Herbs doesn’t make for MF DOOM’s most engaging output, however impossible it is to grasp that bar. If you’re looking for something to totally zone in and study, material like Madvillainy and Operation: Doomsday might prove to be more fruitful. But the advantages of a seemingly unending sprawl are plentiful, so let Special Herbs ride its waves on a long drive, deep study session, or a relaxing dinner party. A marathon doesn’t need to be boring.

Special Herbs Is a Daunting But Fascinating Image of MF DOOM

The collection itself, originally released semi-annually between 2001 and 2005 and reissued today by Metalface Records, corroborates the story of a deeply prolific artist, traversing the most memorable period of DOOM’s career.