The Missing Notebook Rhymes
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| The Missing Notebook Rhymes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Compilation album (unfinished) by | ||||
| Released | August–September 2017 | |||
| Genre | Hip hop | |||
| Length | 15:38 | |||
| Label | Adultswim.com | |||
| Producer |
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| MF Doom chronology | ||||
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The Missing Notebook Rhymes is an unfinished compilation album partially released in 2017 by British-American rapper MF Doom under the shortened alias "Doom". The album was intended to be a 15-song compilation of rare or unreleased Doom tracks that would be released on Adult Swim's website one song a week for 15 weeks—however, on 27 September 2017 Adult Swim abruptly announced the cancellation of the project, just seven songs into its intended 15 song tracklist.[1][2]
The Missing Notebook Rhymes was announced on 7 August 2017 on both Doom[3] and Adult Swim's[4] websites after Adult Swim received a folder from Doom containing 15 rare or unreleased songs.[5] The first track, "Notebook 00 - Negus", was released on Adult Swim's website alongside the announcement.[6] In an interview with Mass Appeal, Adult Swim creative director Jason DeMarco said, "They’re tracks that [Doom] either doesn’t have a home for, or they are part of other projects which aren’t necessarily complete, but we can sort of tease them. It’s sort of a peek at everything he has going on right now."[7] The second track, "Notebook 01 - True Lightyears", was intended to double as the second Missing Notebook Rhyme and also as the first single from Doom's original group KMD's still-unreleased comeback album Crack In Time.[8]
Track listing
| No. | Title | Artist(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Notebook 00 - Negus" (featuring Doom) | Sean Price | 3:06 |
| 2. | "Notebook 01 - True Lightyears" (featuring Jay Electronica and Doom) | KMD | 2:25 |
| 3. | "Notebook 02 - Doomsayer" | Doom | 2:01 |
| 4. | "Notebook 03" | Doom | 3:03 |
| 5. | "Notebook 04" (featuring Kool Keith) | Doom | 2:29 |
| 6. | "Notebook 05 - No Refunds" | Viktor Vaughn | 1:24 |
| 7. | "Notebook 06 - Pause Tape" (Remix) | Doom | 1:10 |
| Total length: | 15:38 | ||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| RapReviews | 7.5/10[9] |
Notes
- "Notebook 00 - Negus" also appeared on Sean Price's 2017 posthumous album Imperius Rex, which was released one day after the song's initial release as the first Missing Notebook Rhymes track.[7]
- "Notebook 01 - True Lightyears" was intended to appear on KMD's comeback album Crack In Time, which remains unreleased.[10]
- "Notebook 03"'s verse later appeared on the 2022 Danger Mouse and Black Thought song "Belize".[11]
- "Notebook 06 - Pause Tape (Remix)" is an excerpt from the JJ Doom song "Pause Tape", released on the 2014 Bookhead EP, which cuts off just before the start of Jneiro Jarel's verse.[12]
Cancellation
On 26 September 2017, following the release of "Notebook 06 - Pause Tape (Remix)", Adult Swim removed The Missing Notebook Rhymes from their website.[13] In a statement made the next day to Mass Appeal, an Adult Swim spokesperson stated, "Adult Swim is ending our relationship with Doom, and thus, the remaining Missing Notebook Rhymes will unfortunately have to remain…missing."[1] No reason was officially given for the cancellation, with both Doom[14] and Adult Swim[15] declining to comment.[9] The album's page on Adult Swim's website began redirecting to a cryptic short story called "What I Remember of the Crash", but soon just redirected to their homepage.[2][16]
On 31 December 2020, in the wake of the announcement of Doom's passing, Jason DeMarco gave his explanation for why the project had been cancelled in a series of Tweets after three years of silence:
Flash forward to like a decade later and I hear Doom really wants to work with me again. After several talks with his management we came up with the idea of the Missing Notebook Rhymes. Of course, once we [Adult Swim] start releasing them, we find two things out: A) Doom hadn’t paid the producers who made these songs or cleared the other vocalists or samples (of course he told us he had it all cleared). B) Doom owed music to a record label. Literally anything he released he owed to them. He didn’t tell us this. So the label came after us[.] It was, in short, a total boondoggle and of course we had to shut it down and apologize to a lot of people and pay a ton of money to a bunch of others.[17][18][19]
