At the very end of 2020, the family of the legendary MF Doom announced that he had quietly passed away on October 31st of that year. The news sent shockwaves to famous friends and fans alike, who were not even aware of MF Doom's condition that could have taken his life with no cause of death revealed to this day. Madlib, née Otis Jackson, has since spoken out about the death of his friend MF DOOM in a new interview with Piotr Orlov for NPR Music. He's admitting that just like everyone else, he too found out about DOOM's passing at the end of last year.
“I found out when everybody else did, on social media,” he confessed in the interview. “His family's very private, so they probably didn’t know how to approach that one. I still can’t believe that he died. That’s weird.”
The pair have collaborated numerous times, becoming known as one of the golden producer-rapper duos in the game, especially when they released 2004's underground album Madvillainy. He noted that he had been in touch with DOOM periodically in the past few years. “We talked like once or twice a year, but that’s how it’s always been. We talked last year and everything seemed fine,” he said. “It was mostly me sending him beats, he rarely sent me stuff. But yeah we checked in, whether it was music or not, talking about our kids or whatever.”