Madvillainy is released

Why it matters

Madvillainy came out March 23, 2004, on Stones Throw. Madvillain is the duo of MF DOOM (the MC) and Madlib (the producer). The album was recorded over the better part of three years, in Madlib's basement studio in Crenshaw, in fragments, with DOOM flying in occasionally to record verses. An early-2002 leak nearly killed the project; Stones Throw rebuilt it. The album is twenty-two short tracks, most of them under three minutes, almost none of them with conventional song structures, all of them produced by Madlib from obscure jazz-and-soul samples and snipped over with DOOM's stream-of-consciousness verses. The combination is the gold-standard producer-MC collaboration of the 2000s underground. "Accordion," "Meat Grinder," "Figaro," "All Caps," "Strange Ways." Madvillainy is the album that consolidated MF DOOM's reputation as one of the best lyricists in rap and confirmed Madlib as one of the most rhythmically adventurous producers working in any era. Pitchfork has named it the best rap album of the 2000s. You should hear it in order. There is nothing else quite like it in rap.