Podcast by Adam Batty and BBC 6 Music DJ Afrodeutsche follows the leads to Leeds
The hunt for clues about the life of the masked rapper MF Doom had taken Adam Batty to some strange places, none more so than a remote-control car shop in the market town of Otley, West Yorkshire.
Rumour had it that Doom, who died in Leeds in 2020, had spent thousands in the shop. Other sightings placed him in the indie venue the Brudenell Social Club.
Like most things surrounding the rapper, myth, rumour and lore envelop his story. But the central question of why one of hip-hop’s most loved figures spent the final years of his life in Leeds drove Batty and the BBC 6 Music DJ Afrodeutsche to attempt to solve the mystery, in MF Doom: Long Island to Leeds.
Born in Hounslow in 1971, the rapper – whose real name was Dumile Daniel Thompson – died aged 49 at St James’s hospital in 2020 due to a lack of oxygen to his brain after a reaction to a drug prescribed for blood pressure.
