![]() On “A Dead Mouse,” his rhyming is defined as follows: “ Cat with a dead mouse is how he catch a phrase, a pause/ Plays with it, kill it, and eat off it for days.” DOOM sounds impressed with his own creation on “Lickupon,” where he notes of Vik that “ he study rhymes and patter-ins/ Climb so steep sometimes the beat don’t be mattering” before defining his innovative nature by saying he “ Sounded like a half-dead from Scurvy band rock/ A programmed, computer bio-grafted Herbie Hancock.” Indeed, much of the album is structured as a kind of extended battle, with Viktor finding new metaphors for his skill. “ The way a lotta dudes rhyme their name should be “knob shiner”/ For a buck, they’d likely dance the Jig or do the Hucklebuck/ To Vik it’s no big deal, they’re just a buncha knuckle-fucks,’ he spits, before adding as a final, dismissive coup de grace, “ You wonder how well would they hold up in a holding cell.” All of Dumile’s personae ultimately establish him as the best rapper in the world, but Viktor is the only one who seems to prove it on an individual basis of competition rather than on a global scale. Where MF DOOM and King Gheedorah are overwhelming beings, Vik is a street-level hustler, one “ Who don’t give a flyin’ fuck who ain’t not feelin’ him.” Shadowboxing lesser MCs, DOOM spends most of the track putting over Viktor as being such a great rapper that he barely even notices anyone else. That more intimate perspective informs Vaudeville Villain, and especially the self-introduction of the title track. MF DOOM turned weed into a magical item granting superpowers Viktor Vaughn just used it to get high. Fittingly, Vaughn was perhaps DOOM’s least elaborate character, trading the political urgency of Zev Love X or the cosmic supervillainy of DOOM for someone who, for the most part, might just be the closest we ever got on tape to Daniel Dumile. Perhaps some of this can also be attributed to the initial sense that the record’s alter-ego, “Viktor Vaughn,” is, per its comic-book source, merely the flip-side of the established DOOM persona. Sandwiched between two of the largest records of MF DOOM’s career, Vaudeville Villain has always managed to feel like a hidden curio despite a level of acclaim that has existed all the way from its 2003 release to the present day.
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