Long before he redeemed himself with his excellent new album, Born Like This, mysterious rapper DOOM was accused of hiring actors to lip-sync his songs at shows, a prospect that naturally offended his many fans. In a recent interview with HipHopDX, DOOM not only admits to hiring actors but also defends himself.
"I liken it to this: I'm a director as well as a writer," he said. "I choose different characters, I choose their direction and where I want to put them. So who I choose to put as the character is up to me. The character that I hired, he got paid for it. There's no impostor."
He goes on to say that when fans go to his shows, they shouldn't expect to see the actual DOOM:
So when you come to a DOOM show, I'm letting all the cats know now, come to hear the show and come to hear the music. To see me? Y'all don't even know who I am! There are certain times I did shows and shit, I took a year off, and I went back to doing the character. I couldn't find nobody to do the character so last minute I said, "Fuck it, I'll do it." [I] came back, did the show, lost a little weight. You know, I'm trimming down, watching my diet. I come back, do the show, sound was excellent. But as soon as I get off the stage, they're saying it wasn't me. Alright, it's never me. I'm the writer. It's a show. That's where it's getting twisted in hip-hop. It's all visual. People want to go see the guy with the big chain who's bragging about all these cars that he has. That's where it gets twisted. This is music. Technology makes it possible for me to still do music and not have to be any particular place. I'm using all that. I'm using every aspect at my disposal to project my creative thoughts. Either people gonna get it or they not. But I'll tell you one thing, if you're coming to a DOOM show, don't expect to see me, expect to hear me or hear the music that I present. And it's gonna be a unique experience every time. So that's all I have to say about that.
We don't imagine this will bode well for DOOM's ticket sales.
"I liken it to this: I'm a director as well as a writer," he said. "I choose different characters, I choose their direction and where I want to put them. So who I choose to put as the character is up to me. The character that I hired, he got paid for it. There's no impostor."
He goes on to say that when fans go to his shows, they shouldn't expect to see the actual DOOM:
So when you come to a DOOM show, I'm letting all the cats know now, come to hear the show and come to hear the music. To see me? Y'all don't even know who I am! There are certain times I did shows and shit, I took a year off, and I went back to doing the character. I couldn't find nobody to do the character so last minute I said, "Fuck it, I'll do it." [I] came back, did the show, lost a little weight. You know, I'm trimming down, watching my diet. I come back, do the show, sound was excellent. But as soon as I get off the stage, they're saying it wasn't me. Alright, it's never me. I'm the writer. It's a show. That's where it's getting twisted in hip-hop. It's all visual. People want to go see the guy with the big chain who's bragging about all these cars that he has. That's where it gets twisted. This is music. Technology makes it possible for me to still do music and not have to be any particular place. I'm using all that. I'm using every aspect at my disposal to project my creative thoughts. Either people gonna get it or they not. But I'll tell you one thing, if you're coming to a DOOM show, don't expect to see me, expect to hear me or hear the music that I present. And it's gonna be a unique experience every time. So that's all I have to say about that.
We don't imagine this will bode well for DOOM's ticket sales.
