10 Greatest Hip Hop Concept Albums

10. MF DOOM - Vaudeville Villain

The much-missed MF DOOM has a thematic thread to his albums more often than not, whether that’s food, Saturday morning cartoons, or monsters. He takes things a little further on 2005’s Vaudeville Villain, a record DOOM performs entirely in the persona of Viktor Vaughn, a supervillain and scientific genius whose bust time machine has left him stuck in the ‘90s.

From there, the album is more character piece than flowing narrative, but the total freedom allowed to DOOM makes him more creative than ever. After the title track sets up the story in short order, Vaughn is straight into braggadocio on “Lickupon”.

“Can I Watch?”, featuring Apani B Fly, sends our anti-hero off on a date, where he behaves poorly and quickly blows his shot. The track features a great beat from King Honey; better still is album highlight “Saliva”, a punchline-laden free associative rap with one of RJD2’s finest production jobs to date.

Vaudeville Villain is a lighthearted entry into DOOM’s varied canon, and serves as a great introduction to the masked rapper.