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Who is "Allah's Reflection" and What Does She Have to Do ...
Uncover the mysterious "Allah's Reflection," a.k.a. Miran...
www.complex.com
Madlib and MF DOOM are two artists shrouded in myth. The former is a master beatsmith with a global ear capable of finding a sample in the most obscure places. The latter has rhymed under so many different aliases it’s hard to keep track. The 2004 album they made together, Madvillainy, is the legend behind all that mythology.
Madvillain’s Madvillainy, from Bloomsbury’s “33 ⅓” series (other installments break down albums as monumental as J Dilla’s Donuts and Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope) parses some of the folklore behind that legendary project. In the spirit of DOOM, author Will Hagle employs pen names and “alternating perspectives of three music journalists who work for a fake publication called The Daily Daily” to do so.
Part of that story revolves around the involvement of Walasia Shabazz, a founding Complex editor and senior editor whose Stress Magazine interview helped set in motion the chain of events that led to DOOM and Madlib teaming up. Hagle credits her as the A&R of his book, but this excerpt from it shows why, besides a cryptic credit on “Fancy Clown,” Shabazz been fighting to have her contributions more fully acknowledged—by Stones Throw Records, lore-reciting rap nerds, and everyone who thinks they know what really went down when the project was just an inkling of an idea
That’s how Madvillainy should be viewed: One third DOOM, one third Madlib, and one third Walasia Shabazz,” she tells Complex. “Everything else is industry rule number four thousand and eighty. Half of the story will never be told, and what I told Will Hagle was just the tip of the iceberg.”—Melvin Backman
Can the story of Madvillain’s formation be as simple as: Two underground hip-hop artists signed a record deal with Stones Throw as their careers were hurtling toward respective crests and created an album together? Those are the facts. The indisputable truth. But Madvillain consists of MF DOOM and Madlib. Their origin story must be more grandiose.
Over time—through versions of the narrative shared in articles online, often featuring representatives from the label as the closest primary sources—a specific version of Madvillain’s origin story has been cemented as Truth. This rendition tends to omit a key individual. Her perspective remains untold. She is unseen.
Most accessible online retellings of Madvillain’s pairing describe Madlib mentioning his desire to work with DOOM during an interview with Marc Weingarten at the Long Beach aquarium, where he also mused on the psychedelic nature of sea dragons. In that Los Angeles Times profile, which ran in the Jan. 20, 2002 edition of the paper, DOOM’s name does not appear. It is written, however, in another article from a month or so prior
