The Questlove Show - Setting The Record Straight: A Convo With The Creator of MF DOOM's Mask

Episode Date: July 25, 2026

During the recent Thundercat episode of The Questlove Show, the creation of MF DOOM's iconic mask was misattributed. After QLS past guests (shout out to Dante Ross), friends of the show, and our legions of dedicated listeners called out the mistake, The Questlove Show is proud to set the record straight by welcoming the mask's original and sole creator, KEO—a longtime friend, collaborator, and creative partner of DOOM. In this QLS mini, KEO tells the story in his own words, sharing the true origin story behind the evolution of DOOM's multiple masks. He reflects on their decades-long friendship and the creative bond they forged through Hip-Hop, visual art, and a bygone era of New York City. KEO also recounts his remarkable journey through the culture—from high school lunchroom battles with Slick Rick and the Kangol Crew, to facing off with Big Daddy Kane, to his connection to 3rd Bass. The conversation also explores KEO's ongoing efforts to celebrate the legacy of another fallen friend and cultural innovator whose work helped bridge artistic disciplines and shape the underground Hip-Hop movement. Infinite respect to KEO. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We know my penchant for talking, so I'll say it's a short, and then next to you know it's four hours later. And we're still talking. First of all, thank you for all the feedback that we've gotten on the shows in the past year. And there's a particular episode, Thundercats. Great chat. Yo, man, I'm still falling down the anime rabbit hole. By the way, I'm here joined by the one that only opened my E-op. Say a little to the people, Mike.

Hey, yo. All right. So basically, we were speaking of Thundercats chain, his MF Doom chain. And, you know, he appraised Han Sholo. for designing his jewelry. And, yes, he misspoke about the creator of the EMF Doom Mask. And Dante Ross and classic Dante Ross. Hey, what up, son?

Oh, my God. I felt like I was bringing home a bad report card to me. I was like, wait, what did I do? What did I do? Yeah, but, you know, Dante Ross and others are pointed out. And, you know, I'm big on correcting history. And speaking of history. So, of course, I immediately wanted to perhaps do a correction episode.

And of course, there was no malice or harm and foul in our misinformation. And, you know, we're living in a time where a lot of misinformation gets passed on and no one ever corrects it. So, yes, even us at the Questlove show are big enough to say, hey, our bad, we want to make it right. So as a result, we want to bring the actual creator of the Doom Mask. and hopefully in this little mini episode really, really get proper context on an item that we've talked about and heard about for years. First of all, Kios, good sir. Welcome to this short.

How are you today? Thank you, man. It's an honor to be here. I'm, man, I'm blessed to be alive. I'm grateful. You know what I mean? Thank you. Thank you.

I think you guys are well as well. Absolutely. We are. So where should we start, Mike? I mean, so I think we should start where you just sort of set the table. Thundercap misattributed the creation of the mask. And it's such an iconic design recognizable everywhere. And as much as, you know, you remember, I would love to just hear about how that all came together to begin with.

So first of all, let me just start by saying, yeah, I worked on the mask, both the early version and the, later gladiator version that most people know. But bigger than that, Doom was my brother, man. I love that cat. I did his first album cover as MF Doom, which is called Operation Dooms Day. I designed his logo.

I did the next one we did was recreate KMD's Black Bastard. We did all the special herbs. Basically anything on metal face records. And I'm talking about MF Grims downfall of Eble. the monster island czars, wrote Dan's first album, all of that. I was blessed to be a part of. And Doom stayed at my house.

I later stayed at his crib in Atlanta and when he was overseas. He knew my daughter. I know his kids, you know what I mean? That's family. So I don't want to argue with anyone about who did what? I mean, there's no real status in that.

because I'm doing new things. I'm currently, and I still work with Jasmine, Dooms, Widow, and the estate. And, you know, like we just did this. And then the next one. You know what I'm saying? So these were things that Doom and I planned while he was still here in the physical. We talked about certain color ways and he okay. Okay, we're going to do the blue and orange.

And we're going to do the black and silver. And we're going to keep it like, you know what I mean? And then we had alternative. So we discussed rollout for albums and merch and things that are still in the works. So it's bigger than just the mask. But yes, I had a hand in conceiving of his first mask because he knew that he wanted to like a graffiti writer. And he came from a graffiti background and mentality. He wanted to keep a level of anonymity.

So you recognize the artwork. You're a fan, but you don't know the personality behind it. At the time when Bobito was putting together the album, and Bob had never done artwork before. He always had white label. Fondlam was just singles in a white sleeve. This was going to do a new thing, a special thing. Around that time, the Wu had come out,

and Ghostface was seen wearing a white stocking mask, a penny hole, you know, like you would rob a banquet. And Doom was like, yo, that's fly. I need something like that. Because in Doom's early appearances at like New York, he covered his face similarly with a stocking, correct? Yeah. But sometimes he wore a bandana like, you know, Jesse James robbing a train. Sometimes he wore a stocking mask. But we were actively working to develop something unique to Doom and his persona that would allow him. Because he liked to.

to go to the bar and sit there and be a regular dude. And then when he jumped on stage, all of a sudden people are cheering and they know the lyrics, but he's sitting next to you the whole night, and nobody bothers him. You know, now, I don't know if that's because he achieved some level of fame

and notoriety as a little kid with KMD, and he had a taste of what that's like. But, you know, fame without fortune, I grew up seeing a lot of my head, hip-hop heroes riding on a subway train with me, right? Somebody assumes you're a star. They may be jealous. They might want to try you.

They think you have money or jewelry that you don't even have. And now you have to fight every day or people, you know, even as a graffiti writer, and I'm not a famous dude. I'm relatively like under the radar. I don't have a Wikipedia page or anything. I walk down the street and people call me out by my name that I don't know. And they're like, yo, I follow you on Instagram. And I'm like, okay, well, what's your name?

State your name. You know what I mean? Like, let's start with that. Introduce yourself. It's awkward. So I understand Doom's desire to just be able to create, produce music without being a public figure. A target.

And he's still, to this day, people want to deify him and speculate on. I get questions all the time, and I'm just like, yo, my man, he was a regular dude. That's my man. Like, you know, he was about feeding his family and all the things that, you know, when we deify somebody, we almost separate ourselves. You know, what Doom did, you can do. You know, what Questlove does. And I'm talking to the kids watching out there. You can create your own, your own.

universe and artwork and do all these amazing things and still be a regular guy, man. You know, I grew up in hip-hop and a lot of the cats that I knew and worked with, whether through graffiti, emceeing, dancing, they went on to startup. Right. So I went to high school of music and art. Quest, I believe he went to a similar school. In Philly, yes. In Philly, right?

Mm-hmm. So it's a public school. as poor kids, it's kids from middle class backgrounds, kids from the project, but everyone had a talent and it creates it. Was this in New York City? Harlem, yeah, 137th and Convent Avenue. Oh, so it wasn't a LaGuardia.

I was on the impression that LaGuardia was the only performing arts school in New York. There was one in Harlem as well? It was originally two sister schools, one called Performing Arts, about which the movie and television show fame was made, which was more about stage and dance and all those kind of things.

And then the sister school, which was up on City College campus, was called music and art. And we had a fine arts program, and we had an instrumental and vocal music program. So Art Wright went there. The drummer Mackie from the Crow Mags was there. Scheme, you know, the Cango crew,

my brothers, Dana Dane, Glick Rick. They were in class with me. We used to battle every day in the lunch room. They went there? Damn. Okay. The fresh three MCs,

F-R-E-S-H, yeah. They were the most ones to have records out of that school. Okay? You know, jazz musicians, famous, all manner of creatives were there. I never knew that. Bernard Wright went to my high school. What? Rest in peace, yeah.

He was a little older than me. He was graduating when I was coming in as a freshman, because I got there in 1980, 80 to 81. Gotcha. Lenin got murdered. Mm-hmm. Okay? So MC Search talks about seeing me battling the Cango crew at the lunch table, and it inspiring him to believe that he could do this thing.

Before he was MC Search, he didn't have a name. He was just Michael Barron. And he always bigs me up for inspiring him. So I want people to understand that whatever Doom did, he's a regular cat. And you can do that too. Don't, don't disqualify yourself. Because in the era I came from, we were all just creating. We didn't have social media.

We didn't have institutions behind us, money, back in corporate, nothing. We just made art for art's sake. How many versions of that mask were, like, as far as the evolution of it, were there four different stages of that mask? or? So the first mask, which you see in the first three music videos, which was shot by a cat named Adam Bala Lo, okay? And he went on to be a big documentary filmmaker.

You can check them out. I know you're a documentary. Okay. So he was at NYU film student at the time. I don't know where Doom met him, but, you know, Doom had a way of attracting talent and getting cats on board. So they did these first three music videos for free. Question Mark featuring Curious, which we shot in Sunset Park in Brooklyn.

That mask was cheap plastic. Like one of these Halloween things you had when you were a kid with a rubber band in the back. Okay. And I spray painted it with Rustolium aluminum spray paint, and I drew details with a marker, and I cut it with a razor blade to right shape. that one did not last. In fact, at that video shoot in Sunset Park,

after they cut, he set it on the bench next to him. Everyone was drinking Jack Daniels, right? Someone, I'm not going to mention the name, sat on the mask. And the thing is split across the nose and eyebrow. So Doom brought it back to me to my studio, which is in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and he wanted me to try and repair it. And we began discussing, he was like,

yo, I need something solid, man. Sorry to interrupt. That original design, you know, the perception of it was that that one was more directly informed by Dr. Doom, the Dr. Doom mask of Marvel. Is that correct? Yeah, that was my inspiration.

I drew little rivets on it and certain shading. You know, Jack Kirby had a way of very simply illustrating metal and mechanical that, you know, people still try to get to this day. And it resonated with graffiti writers because it was thick black outlines. And it was something you could do with spray paint. You understand? So, yeah, there was a lot of that in there. Marvel Disney, please do not come from me.

We created a phone thing. This was a unique construction, okay? It's Mikey Mouse. It ain't Mickey Mouse. Right, right. Gotcha. So after that one split, we got the idea that, you know, we were running around Lower Manhattan. Babito used to live on 14th Street, and his shop was on 9th Street, and we shot the My Favorite

Ladies video on Second Avenue. It was all the East Village. We were running around. You know, the first shows Doom ever did were at Brownies and the Pyramid. These little LES alphabet city. punk rock clubs, right? They had a lot of antique stores over there and curio shops and shops that sold, you know, there was an entire place on Houston where it comes to a triangle near first that was an outdoor, you know, it was covered like a tent. And they had everything, signs from the subway and

basically whatever you could do. So I said, maybe we can find a suit of armor. Somebody's got an actual medieval suit of armor. And we could use that as the basis. While we were running around, we didn't find anything suitable. We passed a place called Forbidden Planet, which is a huge comic book store on Broadway, like 12th or 13th when you're going uptown towards Union Square. They got the whole block with a wraparound window. Me and Doom are both comic bookheads, you know what I mean? Since kids. A movie had just come out with Russell Crow called Gladiator. And we had never seen the film.

We didn't know anything about it. We didn't know who Russell Crow was, but we saw the mask. It was like a souvenir of a Gladiator helmet, which had a big fin on the top and spikes sticking out, that metal. You know, it was a full, full helmet. And it wouldn't stand in the window. And I was like, yo, peeped that. So we bagged that up and I took the faceplate off, which was hinged right here. So it could swing like a motorcycle helmet, you know what I mean?

And discarded the rest. And we just worked with that metal faceplate. And I took it to a cat I knew who did sculpture and had some welding tools. And we made certain modifications so that he could wear it comfortably. And it had the inside of a construction work. helmet, there's like a fitted plastic, you know, like in the back of a fitted cap, adjustable, there's this webbing that your, your construction helmet sits on it. So it doesn't actually sit on your head. It floats, right? So we just took that webbing,

and we put two screw holes, and we affixed the first version of the metal mask to that. And Doom rocked with that for a long time. And it also served as a way. weapon you could hold you know when we start going to bigger venues sobs and um b b b kings which is no long raven they used to metal detect you they used to search you to get in i was going to ask about airports but go ahead yeah exactly so he had a case made for the mask and he could listen i'm performing this is part of my boom boom boom they would let them in but if you held that thing by the back of the straps and you caught somebody with it, it not only weighed about seven pounds, it was stainless steel and those two tusks were sharp, right? So I've seen dudes try to jump on stage and Doom

catch him with that and boom, it's a wrap. So it served many purposes. And there were days when, and I don't want to snitch, Doom is no longer here, so he's immune to prosecution. You know, was a creative dude, but he wasn't soft by any means. Okay? A lot of people think nerd rap or something. No, a nerd is a sucker. You can be well read. You can be into many, many aspects of culture and history and religion and sciences and mathematics and still not be solved. Okay. So there were times when we had to sneak weapons into the club and he made a case with a foam, you know, if you purchased a gun, what it would come a hard case. As a microphone is carried that way or an instrument,

it has a foam cutout for the mask. So the weapons went under the mask so we could get through the metal detector and say, hey, man, it's just my costume. Understanding there'd be a little 25 automatic inside of BB Kings. Yikes. Okay. So, yeah, the mask served many purposes.

What happened, it became totally corroded and rusted. The second version did? It became... The metal. Okay. Yeah. So first he got it re-cromb, and he purchased a couple more. So he had backup versions.

He put a ruby right here at the third eye. He also added on the interior a whole lot of different minerals and crystals and things, which held certain power to him. Okay? Okay. And herbs, and he was very into, you know, esoteric. sciences and natural, you know, healing. Yeah. So he told me the mask was uncomfortable, the rock for hours. So he put some copper in there and copper has a, um, a healing property. I don't know a lot about these things. Wow. Okay. So yeah, he made,

he made a lot of modifications. There's a gold-plated one. Okay. There was the silver version, which he got re-chromed and added a ruby. So there have probably been, at least four versions of the metal mask, which was based on Gladiator. It was a metal mask. But the original mask, I still have the, we attempted to repair it, but it's broken. But that's the first, due mask. And to me, was a superior visual. Maybe it wasn't as sturdy, but it is amazing.

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And all the younger kids who don't remember were like, yo, he's wearing a Doom. Right. Now it's a reverse. Oh, they stole that mask from MF Doom. And I'm thinking like Jay-Z said he could make a Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can. Right?

We made that mask more popular than a big fucking budget Hollywood studio film with stars and nobody remembers that bullshit. Or outlaw culture, man. It's the absolute, like, genius marketing device. It's so weird because when I first started going to fat beats

and they were trying to give me, they're like, no, man, Zepleaf, X has a new character out and this would you and I was like why would he like I came from the school of like you know a big giant KMD fan and was wondering like why is this shrouded in mystery like show us your face and whatnot I do have to ask so I believe I was witness once to a doom show that wasn't a doom show air quotes the specs on that looks so you know unique and specific as a one-off art piece, how are Katz getting, and I'm talking about the occasional Doom impostors that were out there?

So what I know is that Doom had legal issues that didn't allow him to travel. The travel, I get it. Okay. He had his man who was this basically his same physical stature, right? Got you. and taught him how to millie-vanilly the shit so that he could appear with the mask on and get that money.

That's almost as legendary as within him just being MF Doom, but also, you know. Right, but we've all gone to shows where half the Wu-Tang didn't show up or, you know, Lauren Hill was seven hours late. Right. Right. He just found a way to circumvent that.

If the powers that be didn't want to let him into the country, he'd send his man and still get that paycheck. And he still goes on. Two shows on the same night. And the fans are happy. No, the fans wasn't happy, no. Because I was at a couple of them. You used that one of them doing?

I was at two of them. And we was not happy. But I do, I certainly understand, though. I certainly understand. When I was a kid, when I was a kid, I used to go to the Latin quarters and cats had singles out and you never knew what they looked like.

Pre-video, right? So other dudes would show up. It's your money. And promote themselves as being you. And I've seen it. Yeah. I just did a De La Sol episode

in which Macyo shares a story about dealing with the fake the fake MC Shan and the fake BDP so no I know that can happen my man at the time and we're talking 86 my running partner

he was from Brooklyn but he was cool Keith's cousin right his name was wrong Gio so he had a lot of game and he got us into the club free I wasn't even aware he had told Mike Goldberg who owned the Latin quarters that I was Mike D from the Beastie Boys so that we could get in free. I didn't even

know he had done this. Now in 86, the Beasties have the biggest record on the planet. You understand? You know, this is why I'm so protective today of my IP because I come from a time when we didn't have any podcast, videos, books. There were no way to tell your old story, really. There were no institutions teaching hip-hop. We had to police ourselves. I'm very grateful for all the people that jumped in the comments and it's like, nah, that was Keough, because your name was all you had,

right? Especially as a graffiti writer. So we could parody Marvel Comics or the Kung Fu Flicks or even real-life historical figure. You could claim to be Frank Nitty or Al Capone, But you couldn't say you were rock Kim. Right. You understand? So in graffiti, we would take Mickey Mouse and redraw them and give him a blunt and a baseball hat or whatever and a gold chain.

And that was fly. We could bite off of the Disney Corporation or copy lettering from the cereal box or Comet or Ajax. Right? But I couldn't copy lettering from Dundee. Somebody would call me out on it. They said, yo, you bid. that. Now that seems to go out the window.

There's actually two Rock Kim's now. There's two... No. Yes. There's a Rock Kim who is a regga tone performer. Oh, well, yeah. There's two Nazes. There's little gnaws and big gnauz. They're both making

fucking records at the same time. In my day, that would have gone to blows and possibly you know, even worse. times of things. You would fight to defend your name. Yeah.

So when somebody comes on and says, they created the mask, I immediately go to a place of ego and pride that I had. It's instilled in me from a kid. We battled. You know what I mean? That's perfectly understandable too.

But I'm trying to be a little more humble and adult about life these days. We just wanted to give you your flowers, man. And, you know, definitely correct history and let our listeners out there know. Because AI is a dangerous thing now. It just skims whatever is on the internet. So if I Google who made the Doom Mask,

they're going to find your podcast. And it'll say, Han Cholo created the Doom Mask. I'm like, okay. I doubt that's going to happen now. Exactly. We're able to set the record straight. The way we got dealt with. It's like, but listen, people don't understand how we grew up.

Fat Joe has a podcast now. And all I see is people calling a cap and he, no way you did these things. Right. I happen to know Fat Joe was, you know, they stuck up my man. Him and Brim jumped out the van with a sort of shotgun and took their spray paint. This one, Joe had records out. He was scoff dudes for spray paint. So when he tells the story, I believe him.

I know now there's no beef anymore. more. I love Tats crew, bio, BG, terror squad. Those are my people. But back then, they were dangerous motherfuckers, bro. But when I go to tell my own life story, it sounds crazy that we could leave the house with 35 cents, hop the turnstown, steel spray paint, rack up some 40 ounces, rob somebody for their weed, coming out of the weed spot on Myrtle Lab, and then wind up the end of the night at the world or the tunnel partying with Grace Jones and Madonna. And that was all in one day.

I battled, you know, I tell people, yo, I battle Big Daddy Kane in Albi Square Mall while Biz was doing the beatbox before he had records. And they go, yeah, right. Sure you did. I believe you. And I battled Napoleon at fucking water. Because we didn't have a camera to film every day. I did want to ask you one more question.

I know you mentioned for Doom as a person, as an artist, the importance of the mask is him being able to sort of separate his identity as a regular person versus who he is on stage. But I also think of this, right? Like, I started listening to Doom when I was 17. I got a 17-year-old son now. And the only artist that I rock with and he rock with is Doom. You know what I'm saying? So in a sense... My grandson, my grandson is five and loves Doom.

And I didn't put him on the do. Right. And so he found out of himself. Doom is one of those few artists that is bigger than life. And I do feel like the mask is an important part of that. So I'm curious, what do you think is the importance of the mask to Doom's legacy? You have to understand the current popular climate at that time was a lot of pretty boys and really slick high budget videos, dudes dancing with their shirt off. And Doom to him, it was like, yo, that's.

not what this is about. This is about wreck, right? How nice you are. How nasty you are with the skills. So there were dudes who looked a certain way, who maybe weren't as skillful. You know the story of Martha Wash, the big woman who sang? Yeah, the girls. Right. Because she was a large size woman. They put models to lip sync for her in the video. So that was happening in hip-hop. It became more about your appearance than your skills. And again, Doom is old enough, even though he was far younger than I. He remembers an era when you didn't know what you'd hear the record, right? You didn't know what cats looked like. It didn't. So he wanted to be judged on his creative skill, not what he looked like. But honestly, and he says it himself, he wasn't a Tom Cruise looking dude. He was not a movie

star handsome kind of cat. And he made no bones about that. Girls loved him. He was charming. He had a way to talk to females that blew my mind. But, you know, he says it. A rather ugly brother would flows this

gorgeous. So that he told you why he wears a mask. People want to make it something it isn't. It's real simple. You know what I mean? It's about the creativity, about being allowed to be creative, You got to remember the image on his KMD album cover is the excuse that they used to cancel him and his younger brother, rest in peace of rock.

Because of what it looked like without ever listening to this shit. So he wanted to take that out. Yo, I might be a black dude or Spanish dude. I might be Chinese under this mask. It don't fucking matter. I'm so glad we was able to have you in. To hear from you directly to hear these stories. I mean, you know what I'm saying?

Like, Duhl means a lot. To me, it means a lot to us. And it's dope to meet you having contributed such an iconic piece of like hip-hop art to the world that I feel like it's going to outlive all of us. May I shout out what I'm working on right now before we wrap? Absolutely. So we're doing the Tame One documentary right now. Stay tuned for that.

Nice. Starling. and Redman is in there. Everybody, everybody is in. The Questlop shows a production of IHeart Radio. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. The Dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form.

We're launching Podlandia AEO rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people, who helped bring it all to life.

Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chryssel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song. Well, I thought you were all going to write a song.

I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. A.O. Rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nick Tutoro. You probably know me from NYU. Pee Dee Blue, the longest yard, or Spike Lee's Black Klansman. And on my new podcast, Delivering Happiness with Nick Tatoro, I deliver pizza to a new guest.

I've shared a slice with everyone from Seth Rollins. What are you doing, my belt? To Bill Burr. I don't think I've ever met somebody so exactly out of their mind as I am. And now, we even have more great guests coming up, including the great John Tuturo. It's called Happiness. Delivering Happiness. And many, many more.

Open your free High Heart Radio app. Search Delivering Happiness with Nick Tutor. And listen now. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse. The world gets crazier. And Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was?

If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamanika, and I'm out. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you're. get your podcast. On Raiders of the Lost podcast, we explore cinema like no one else, including huge interviews with stars like Ryan Gosling on Project Hail Mary.

It was like the Jaws Shark. Didn't always work, came with its own problems. That's what made it great. The cast of obsession. On set, there was so much magic happening with each scene we were putting together. Deep dives into classics like 2001 of Space Odyssey or Fight Club, plus weekly episodes on all industry news. Listen to Raiders of the Lost podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And for more, follow at Raiders of the Lost podcast and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.