Being a Kool Keith fan requires a long memory-- Dr. Dooom 2 is the follow-up to 1999's First Come, First Served, a record released back when Keith had enough juice to share a headline review in Rolling Stone (fun fact: the other three co-leads were the debuts from Ja Rule and Memphis Bleek, as well as Keith's own Black Elvis/Lost in Space). Being a Kool Keith fan also requires a very short memory, since aside from a handful of laugh riots on Spankmaster ("N.B.A.", "Drugs") and the Diesel Truckers release that some will swear up and down was a return to form, he's since put out the same exact terrible album nearly every single year.
Because it isn't a ream of loosely-related expletives and thinly-veiled threats at OutKast like Matthew, Dr. Dooom 2 isn't Keith's worst album, but it doesn't do a whole lot to break recent trends, as it follows the latter-day Keith format of "Oh, he's working with that dude again" (in this case, KutMasta Kurt) and "Oh, he's using that name again." And at the very least, he at least sounds in better form, since as recently as three years ago, there was the implication that he'd gone strictly spoken-word.
But "first single"/selling point "R.I.P. Dr. Octagon" pretty much confirms how little there is to Dr. Dooom 2 if you're not interested in Keith's particular brand of inside baseball. Not that you'll be able to figure it out from the listless rambling about label conspiracies, but First Come was clearly borne out of Keith's surprising resentment of how Octagon's rhymes regarding chimpanzee acne and Manischewitz mostly caught the attention of Alternative Nation and glue-sniffing skate kids. Think of it as the first three Eminem albums on a exponentially smaller scale. Dr. Dooom 2 doesn't do much to acknowledge the narrative of its predecessor, which is pretty tough to do considering First Come, First Served managed to somehow house tracks like "Bitch Gets No Love" and "I Run Rap" with the surprisingly introspective "Leave Me Alone" under the auspices of a vengeful cannibal who also happened to be the best rapper alive. This being a 21st-century Kool Keith record, 75-85% of Dr. Dooom 2 finds him taking umbrage at artists that have the nerve to do things that might advance their career (networking, free drinks, and athletes seem to be particular hang-ups). For the most part, he just threatens to pee on people, which would be an interesting way to show one's superiority if Keith hadn't be doing some variation of the same thing for about the last ten years.
In fact, a passing mention of Carmelo Anthony and a boast that pretty much contradicts the creation of Dr. Dooom ("white people love me like Fergie") are about the only evidence of Keith absorbing cultural input of the last five years. The record begins with "Simon", which boasts oh-so-timely rants about "American Idol" before going off on one of Keith's many pointless tangents about the Gap. Other than the embarrassing Monsters, Inc. narrative of "Run For Your Life" and "How Sexy", which answers the rhetorical question of its title with "not very," that's pretty much all you get.
But really, Keith's in a no-win situation. The past two decades of his career have mostly been predicated on criticizing uncreative rappers with left-field disses ("I'm starting to feel like Jimi Hendrix when they covered the story [of] who started rock"), and while not all chart-toppers are inspiring, being a fan of popular rap these days likely means you're likely a fan of Lil Wayne, Ghostface Killah, or even Aesop Rock. Maybe all three. Point is, mainstream listeners aren't exactly struggling with abstract concepts, and while acknowledging the debt he's owed might result in insufferable KRS-One entitlement, it couldn't be worse than Keith becoming increasingly isolated and weird, refusing to gracefully bow out.
