At Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival '24, one of the sweetest scenes was an hour-long, tender tribute honoring the late rapper/producer MF DOOM, who passed away on Halloween 2020 at the age of 49.
Titled "FM MOOD: A Tribute to MF DOOM," conductor Miguel Atwood-Ferguson lead the 30-piece Metalface Orchestra and producer Madlib — DOOM's partner in the duo Madvillain— through a selection of the artist's most beloved tracks, including "One Beer" and “Dead Bent.”
Giving DOOM his flowers in this way was long overdue, but when it concluded with Erykah Badu singing "Doomsday" while inserting Sade's "Kiss of Life," it all became well worth the wait.
MF DOOM sampled the Sade banger for "Doomsday," so it was sweet to hear Badu stretch it out and honor two legends in the same song.
The attention to detail Atwood-Ferguson did in arranging the tribute should be widely applauded. The lush, careful, strings, horns and percussion lifted the compositions to a higher level.
This was unexpected at the two-day festival celebrating its 10th anniversary and currently being held in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium, near downtown Los Angeles.
While many noticed the Sade love, it seems like everyone else, from the music writers to those on Twitter seemed to have missed when Badu inserted two verses from her own back catalogue.
When the 53-year-old neo-soul icon broke into these bars, she was dipping into her past:
It was a stormy night
You know the kind where the lightning strike
And I was hangin' out wit some of my "artsy" friends
Ooh wee ooh wee ooh
See, I picks my friends like I pick my fruit
My granny told me that when I was only a youth
I don't walk around tryin' to be what I'm not
I don't waste my time tryin' to get what you got
As she continued, it was clearly "Appletree" from her breakthrough 1997 debut LP Baduizm.
Badu was reportedly a half hour late to her own set earlier on Sunday and the event producers were unfortunately forced to cut her mic 20 minutes into her performance.
Not only does the festival, created and curated by Tyler the Creator, have to consider the strict curfew to appease the neighbors of the Elysian Park neighborhood, but Amazon was streaming the festivities and they too appreciated the tight schedule.
It was Badu's second appearance at the festival, her first being in 2016 when Chance the Rapper, Lil Wayne, Lil Uzi Vert, A$AP Rocky and SZA were also on the bill. That year the festival was held in Exhibition Park near USC.
It took nearly three years but it was eventually determined in July 2023, Daniel Dumile died from a rare reaction to blood pressure medication.
His wife, Jasmine, explained that after taking ACE inhibitors prescribed for his condition, he experienced swelling in his mouth and throat, which led to breathing difficulties which sent him to the hospital.
Sadly, Jasmine claims the St. James's Hospital in Leeds, England, didn't treat her husband with the care she expected. At the time the planet was engulfed in a panic about COVID, and like many of those patients, he was placed on a respirator.
Because of the tight restrictions of that time, Jasmine was not permitted to sit with her husband in his room and was unable to alert the staff to check on him frequently. She claims there was a delay in administering his meds which led to his untimely demise.
Fans of his solo work and collabs did not hesitate in making sure he was honored in the city of Long Beach, NY, where he and his brother grew up.
In a matter of months after his death Long Beach renamed a stretch of the street after him.
“MF DOOM left an indelible mark on the music industry and on the lives of people across the globe," city manager Donna Gayden said on July 31, 2021. "Long Beach is proud to bestow this honor in his memory and proud that he called our city home.”
When Erykah gets behind the ones and twos she performs as DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown.
Next month she'll be spinning in London on a bill with Honey Dijon and others including Cakes Da Killa, Major League DJz, Eliza Rose, and Chez Damier.
Get tickets on the Drumsheds website.
