Gigs & Festivals Top Stories

DOOM decoy made London PA, promoters allege

By | Published on Wednesday 29 August 2012

Doom

A London hip hop collective has accused masked rapper DOOM, real name Daniel Dumile, of allowing an imposter to appear in his place at one of their club nights. Despite Dumile’s being booked to make a PA at last weekend’s ‘Livin DOOM’ party, its hosts Livin Proof allege via Facebook that “there is a very strong possibility the person that was finally sent down was not DOOM himself”.

Having arranged with Dumile’s management that he would deliver a DJ set as part of his appearance, Livin Proof also claim DOOM’s people made a last minute “extortionate request” for a greater fee than had originally been agreed. The DJ set was then cancelled, but reinstated again ten minutes prior to the show, after which a masked man purporting to be Dumile – but not looking much like him at all – played briefly and signed autographs.

Livin Proof, certainly, weren’t convinced by the apparent decoy DOOM, and say: “Doing this show has taught us a lot about how some artists operate and how they feel they can treat others and, most importantly, their fans. As fans of DOOM ourselves, this has left a very sour taste in our mouths”.

Since they paid the revised fee directly to Dumile’s bank account in response to his reps’ sudden demand, the collective say they are “seeking legal advice” and a full refund. Camp DOOM has so far declined to comment.

This isn’t the first time the authenticity of a DOOM PA has been in doubt. Several alleged sightings of fake DOOMs have been made in the past, one example being when a supposed stand-in was booed off-stage at 2008’s Rock The Bells festival.

Pitchfork also draws attention to a Rolling Stone quote circa 2009 in which the rapper himself implied that, at a DOOM show, seeing and believing are somewhat interchangeable: “People are asking more now for live shows and I’m charging more, so it must’ve worked somewhere… [though] I tell you one thing, when you come to a DOOM show, come expecting to hear music, don’t come expecting to see”.



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