Mixtape Throwbacks #1 – ‘Ugly Mac Beer Invasion:The Unofficial MF Doom Mixtape’

I’d almost forgotten about this piece of hip-hop bootleg gold, but the release of the Operation Doomsday in a lunchbox double-cassette package sparked the memory, and made me track it down once more.

Mixed by French DJ / Producer Ugly Mac Beer sometime in the mid- or early-2000’s, the CD version of this was my go-to birthday present for heads for about 12 months. I must have given about a dozen of the physical copy of these out in 2007, the year that it first appeared in UK distribution. Never got anything but much love from it for years after as well.

At around seventy-five minutes in length Ugly Mac Beer Invasion features around thirty of Doom’s best verses from a variety of his aliases, projects and guest appearances, narrated occasionally by Ugly Mac Beer interludes. Picking up from his solo days, post-KMD, the collection of tracks is weighted heavily in the golden-years of the rapper born Daniel Dumile, with his work as King Geedorah, Madvillainy, Viktor Vaughan and MF Doom up until 2004 flowing nicely in together, closing itself off before the time that The Mouse & The Mask was released.

The thing that really comes through here is how far ahead of the pack MF Doom was (and to some degree is) with his style of rhyming. The Mouse and The Mask was the last Doom album for almost four years, until Born Like This, and with the gift of hindsight we can see that this was a change of direction for MF Doom, and the retirement of some of our favourite Doom characters.

Ugly Mac Beer Invasion… covers, in my opinion, a period of time where Doom was bringing back old-school boom-bap and amazingly clever rhyme-writing. Taken in the context of other releases at the time, MF Doom was staying true to his original dense rhyme style, over perfectly chopped loops, that Madlib sample style that caused a renaissance in digging. I don’t think any hip-hop rapper has come close to giving us such a unique style as Doom did during this period.

And while there’ll never be anything as good as discovering those classic albums all-over again, it’s a nice collection to have on hand, more than enjoyable to take you back and appreciate one of the greatest.

You’ve got to tip your hat to Ugly Mac Beer for a masterful job on this, though I’m pretty sure that Doom hasn’t received a penny from the CD sales. Not feeling too bad about sharing the below youtube link then.

Kick back and let this play, appreciate MF Doom at his best.