He resurfaced in 1997 with the single “Dead Bent,” his first song under the name Metal Face Doom. (The persona was a nod to the Marvel villain Doctor Doom.) In a 2009 interview in The New Yorker, Mr. Dumile said the mask became necessary as he made the leap from the studio to the stage. “I wanted to get onstage and orate, without people thinking about the normal things people think about,” he said. But if there’s going to be a first impression I might as well use it to control the story.

Source: New York Times December 31, 2020 23:09 UTC