Doomtree Taught Me Family
Family.
Merriam-Webster defines the word as: “A group of people who are related to each other,” and I suspect that’s how most of us - at least initially - define it as well. But my real life family never felt quite like “family”. Not how I thought it was supposed to feel, anyway. They barely raised me after I could ride a bike. They sure as hell never really knew me.
Is that family?
It’s not until you go deeper, well past that first basic definition, that we start to see something different: “A group of people united by certain convictions or a common affiliation.”
Hmm. Now that feels better.
I’d seen it on TV. Voltron. ThunderCats. The A-Team. Transformers. They weren’t blood relatives.
Hip hop showed it to me as well. Juice Crew. UTFO. Native Tongues. Wu-Tang. Maybe even Bone Thugs, though honestly, they more often seemed like all the same person.
But all of that felt so distant. Giant robots, quirky hip hop mega-stars, cat-like humanoid aliens. So, you know, not entirely relatable.
And then I bought the album No Kings.
I’m Kris Hampton, and this is how Doomtree Taught Me Family.
Doomtree is a Minneapolis based hip hop collective that consists of two producers: Lazerbeak and Paper Tiger, and five emcees: Sims, Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan, POS, and Dessa, with some of the emcees also sharing production duty. With that many voices, styles, and agendas in the mix, it could get messy, fast. On “Team the Best Team”, a track that features all five emcees going deep into their own personal styles, somehow, they not only pull off a disparate cohesiveness, but they do it in a way that, for me, can only mean one thing.
POS kicks things off in his signature philosophically-dense but intensely burning style that immediately draws you in with its charm:
Think love, and think drugs, and they’re the same thing inside
And we struggle, or get enough, but it’s the same thing
Burn holes in the Moleskine
Bout it, Been friends with a pen, gave trust to the page
Love, drugs, social media, crime, sex - whatever the addiction, it’s all the same thing. Of course, we can have a healthy relationship with all of these things, even though most have been vilified in some way. But what happens when the one thing that everyone says we need - love, particularly in the form of family - is weaponized?
And you can stay miserable all your life but what kind of difference that make?
What, you ain’t had enough of that pay, ain’t had enough of your way?
Live from the Haunted North, in the woods where the fire roars
You fell for the Trojan horse
Who want it more? It’s already yours
“You fell for the Trojan horse. Who want it more? It’s already yours.”
Sims lays it out for us, coded, but sharp enough to cut at the slightest touch. What if the thing you’ve been told is love - family - isn’t love at all? What if there is something hidden? What if it’s manipulated? Who wants the truth more?
You probably already know what it is, but you have to trust yourself.
And then the deadpan delivery of the quiet, reserved guy in the corner: Cecil Otter. The driving beat strips away, and he winds up in slow motion. You see it coming. He’s telegraphed it from the jump, but you can’t move, mesmerized by the grooving bass. And as the brass builds, he hits you square in the nose with the slowest punch ever.
It’s gonna come some day, so come what may and I pray it comes
We’re still gonna run like strays, purr like kittens, and bang a gong
We’ve sang our songs, we’ve seen the war, we’re living that and more
Knowing even the greatest dancers in the world are bound to leave the dance floor
And you’re dazed, but you’re finally beginning to understand what needs to be done.
So shake, shake, shoot, it’s like win, draw, lose
Because dice kept cooped up
Just bring bad luck
Man is made to choose
Dessa, one of the bonafide superstars of the group, needs only a few bars to give us the next step.
We can choose. We’re meant to.
Rolling the dice isn’t a matter of accepting fate; it’s a matter of making a decision to consciously change. And if that doesn’t work out? Well, shake, shake, shoot.
When I first heard Doomtree, Mike Mictlan seemed like the odd man out. His style was so different. Chaotic. Agitated. But in concert, at the end of “Team the Best Team”, with Mike batting clean up over Lazerbeak’s building horns, everyone on stage - every passionate emcee who obviously gave 100% to how they put the pen to page and delivered it to us - focused their energy on Mike.
Cecil Otter stopped moving entirely, letting his mic drop to his side, and became a fan, forgetting that he was even on the stage. POS got close, head nodding, eyes wide, grin massive. Sims was in his own world, entirely lost in the display of lyrical dexterity, and Dessa took on a stance as if she hoped to absorb some of whatever it was Mike had channeled.
Let it dead, let it crawl
Let it all count when you bet it all
Say it like you mean it, just say it
Never better if you never even said it at all
He was different. Very different. But he wasn’t ostracized. He wasn’t a pariah. He was admired. He was my favorite emcees’ favorite emcee.
He was family.
And in the way that the greatest emcees do, this team - the best team - this family, tells us without ever saying it. Each message setting up the next. Each emcee carrying forward what their brother or sister handed to them.
Blood is biological, and nothing more. If it goes beyond that, if there is a mutual respect, it’s not due to shared DNA.
It’s who you are. Who I am. Who WE - the collective - are.
Despite Doomtree having some really standout parts, they somehow assemble to be a much greater sum. A sum built of distinct individuals who don’t need to compromise in their own vision in order to be family.
I’ve sang my song. I’ve seen the war. I’ve rolled the dice, and made my choices. I’ll continue to burn holes in the Moleskine, my know-how learned in spades and my battles for my people fought with a broadsword.
And I’ll forever bang my gong like I mean it. Exactly however the fuck loud I want to.
Thanks for listening to Hip Hop Taught Me Everything. This whole show - from imagery to writing to beats to the website to final mixes - is created by the two of us: Kris Hampton and Devin Dabney.
You can support the show by sharing it with all of your friends who love hip hop. Or podcasts. Even better, both.
We know that we aren’t the only ones out here who were raised by hip hop. If you’d like to tell us about a lesson you learned from your favorite song, to possibly be featured on a future episode, share it with us at My Story.
