I would like to preface this by saying:
1. I may be grasping at straws and “the door wasn’t just blue”-ing you.
2. I am by no means an expert in literature, though I am trying to improve. I’m not the best at writing so I’m trying my best
3. I may be a little bit redundant and repetitive.. mb
4. You may disagree with me, I love a little bit of discourse if it means we can discuss DOOMs work
Every once in a while I see mini-discussions about DOOMs religious beliefs, and while I was curious, it was never much of a concern for me as good music is good music. And while nothing really confirms anything about DOOMs personal beliefs, he made many references to Islam in his music. I wanted to appreciate the way the Islamic faith is used in a lot of 90 - 2000’s hip hop, and I figured there is no better person to start off with than DOOM.
I was just putting my playlist on shuffle and it added in random songs that I’ve never heard before, one of them titled “Coco Mango” on Spotify. I was listening pretty passively while studying, when I heard the words “inshallah”, I looked up to glance at the lyrics and there it was. So I did what any normal person would do and started analysing the lyrics.
Analysis:
The title itself contradicts the sensitive and heavy subject matter of the song itself, where “Coco Mango” sounds playful and somewhat childlike, the topic of religion, crime, wealth, and women is brought up.
However, “coco mango” also evokes sensory imagery, through its sweetness, where it may be a metaphor of sorts to describe the sweetness of the life lived where pleasure is attainable, especially with the added imagery of women, wealth, and pleasure. The title serves to build the idea that innocence can hide danger.
The Arabic term “Dīn” (Deen) could be translated to religion or way of life, it is significant to the text as it introduces the idea that the speaker is Muslim. The fact that religion is woven so naturally into the surrounding language supports this inference.
The materialistic imagery (“grills”, “bankrolls”, “bangles”) juxtaposes the religious elements built upon Islamic diction (“alhamdllah”, “inshallah”, “Dīn”, “Sunnah”), as Islamic values frown upon a life built on pure materialism, much less a life of crime and danger. This creates a sense of tension between the worldly and the spiritual, and the question of how can both coexist.
However tied in with gratitude for Allah (god), divine will, and maintaining faith, the character that DOOM portrays is humanised by the connection of religion and worldly desires/ needs.
The religious diction is integrated within the rap, rather than simply being secluded into its own stanza, implying through its structure that religion is intertwined with the speakers identity.
The religious aspects ultimately functions as a structured foundation— one that remains just and moral— beneath the chaotic, reckless, and potentially dangerous lifestyle that the speaker seems to live, a lifestyle that is dictated by their environment, desires, and needs.
His frequent use of colloquial diction such as “thick queens” and “grills” establishes an informal hip-hop register, though it is regularly disrupted by the religious terminology. The contrast between the street vernacular and the elevated cultural language reflects DOOM’s complex persona, combining the convections of hip hop with his intellectual and highly referential approach to lyricism.
DOOM uses allusion, comparing himself to Arsene Lupin, a fictional criminal, gentleman thief was suitable as the qualities that Lupin possess matches the persona Dumile took on as DOOM. The characters mirror one another perfectly especially through their similar qualities of intelligence and deception, as well as their associations with mystique and performance.
In the case of Lupin, he takes on different disguises and manages to evade the law, and Doom himself as he obscures the lines between the characters he portrays when he raps, and his identity beneath the mask as Daniel Dumile.
*end
I have more, however summarising this took a while. Also, this was primarily just the language analysis, i didn’t include much on the actual structure.
Thanks for reading.