MF DOOM – SPECIAL HERBS 7 & 8 (SKY BLUE VINYL)

MF DOOM – Special Herbs 7 & 8 (Sky Blue Vinyl) is one of the more visually and sonically distinct entries in an instrumental series that helped define how producers think about beat tapes as standalone artistic statements. Released on Rhymesayers under DOOM’s production alias Metal Fingers, this LP collects volumes seven and eight of the Special Herbs run, catalog number RSE 3851, pressed on sky blue vinyl that makes it as shelf-worthy as it is turntable-worthy.

About the Special Herbs Series and MF DOOM

Daniel Dumile, performing and producing as MF DOOM and Metal Fingers, spent years building one of the most distinct aesthetics in Hip-Hop. His ear for source material ran wide: ’70s Soul and Funk, ’80s R&B, rap nostalgia, children’s records, television soundbites. Everything was fair game, and nothing came out sounding like anyone else had touched it. The Special Herbs series exists specifically to foreground that production work without vocals sitting on top of it, and the result is something that holds up as its own thing entirely. Across the full collection, the range of sounds assembled is genuinely expansive, from series-exclusive beats to reworked material he built for himself and other artists.

MF DOOM – Special Herbs 7 & 8 (Sky Blue Vinyl): What’s on the Record

Volumes seven and eight carry the same naming convention as the rest of the series, with tracks titled after herbs, roots, and botanicals: Safed Musli, Emblica Officinalis, Licorice, Sarsaparilla, Fo Ti, Camphor, High John, Mandrake, Devil’s Shoestring, Wormwood, Cedar, Buckeyes, and Chrysanthemum Flowers. Thirteen tracks across one LP. The naming scheme is part of the conceptual fabric of Special Herbs as a whole, framing DOOM’s beats as ingredients in a recipe rather than individual songs. It fits. His production approach on these records is fundamentally about combination: how disparate sounds from completely different eras and contexts can be broken apart and reassembled into something that follows its own internal logic.

Why This Pressing

The sky blue vinyl pressing is the reason to seek out this specific copy. Rhymesayers handled the release, and the colored format adds a collectibility factor that the standard black pressings simply do not carry. For collectors focused on DOOM’s catalog, the Special Herbs volumes on colored wax are consistently harder to come by than his vocal records, partly because they attracted a narrower audience on release and partly because that audience holds onto them. RSE 3851 is the catalog number to verify you have the right version. If you are building a complete Special Herbs run or rounding out a DOOM production collection, this is a pressing worth having in the format that was made to stand out.

Tracklist

1. SAFED MUSLI
2. EMBLICA OFFICINALIS
3. LICORICE
4. SARSAPARILLA
5. FO TI
6. CAMPHOR
7. HIGH JOHN
8. MANDRAKE
9. DEVIL'S SHOESTRING
10. WORMWOOD
11. CEDAR
12. BUCKEYES
13. CHRYSANTHEMUN FLOWERS