Doom's Unexpected Guests

Behold the power of the Legion of Doom. No, it's not a superhero team, but a rag tag group of rappers lead by the master of indie hop himself, MF Doom. This masked crusader has been dropping deft rhymes and beats for over a decade, all the while accumulating an intelligent thought provoking repertoire of hip hop that surprise, surprise is destined to rule the world. And his latest album, Unexpected Guests, which as the title suggests is a team up/collaboration record that sounds like the a Super Friends Team Up that might just lead to conquest.

While much of Unexpected Guestsfeatures previously released material, so much of it is so hard to find that this record serves as a record collector's dream come true. With everybody and their mother appearing on this record, it covers just about every corner of the hip hop continuum that Doom has appeared in. With appearances by Talib Kweli from a 2005 mixtape, to guest shots by J dilla, Ghostface, Gza, and more than likely someone from your neighborhood Unexpected Gueststruly plays out like a series of unexpected, spontaneous jams and appearances and that's something you just have to hear to understand. It's because of that spontaneity and that feeling that so much of Unexpected Guests is just that unexpected and unrehearsed that it sounds like priceless stuff.

From the ironically titled, "Da Supafriendz," to the laid back summer like jam of the oddly titled, "?," Unexpected Guestsis really an unexpected treat. While many guest appearances are anything but memorable, not one single track on this record is a throw away and it almost seems as if Doom become stronger with each subsequential collaboration. Doom's ability is impressive and it's no surprise that his fans are borderline insane when it comes to tracking down his work. Thankfully, Unexpected Guests is destined to save a few collectors sanity, for the rest of us though, it's an album that plays out in fine fashion with some darn fine hip hop that's far outside of the mainstream.