Jasmine Dumile, the widow of MF DOOM, claims that his ex-business partner, Eothen “Egon” Alapatt, stole his rhyme book before the rapper passed away in 2020. According to TMZ, she claims there were many attempts at retrieving the book, including before DOOM’s death. However, Alapatt refuses to return it.
Dumile said, “There have been many unsuccessful attempts to get these back prior to DOOM’s passing. We had hoped after DOOM transitioned, Egon would do the right thing and return the books to the family, but he has continued to ignore these requests.”
She added, “Unfortunately, Egon is not the only former associate abusing the likeness, art and life’s work of DOOM. More will be said at the appropriate time.” According to the widow, Alapatt, the president and founder of Now-Again Records met DOOM 20 years ago while working as the general manager of Stone Throw Records.
Last month, Talib Kweli took to his Instagram to accuse Alapatt of blocking the release of Black Star’s most recent album and taking advantage of other Black artists, such as DOOM.
“One day, the hip hop community is going to have to discuss what a lying, stealing, conniving culture vulture Eothen Alapatt AKA Egon from Now-Again Records is,” Kweli wrote. “This is a non-Black person who routinely takes advantage of Black artists and brags about it. We need to discuss how he uses the money he steals from iconic hip hop artists to buy up catalogs of unsuspecting older Black artists and then hordes the music so that [Alapatt] can decide what gets sampled and what doesn’t, depending on how much money he personally makes off of music he doesn’t create.”
He continued, “Today, all I want to know is why Egon stole MF DOOM rhyme book and [refused] to give it back to DOOM family, even after MF DOOM passed away,” he wrote. “MF DOOM officiated this man’s wedding FOR FREE, but then later stopped rocking with him because of his devil ways. [So] someone tag Now-Again and asks Egon why he stole MF DOOM rhyme book. He got me blocked. The era of the culture vulture is OVER.”
As of yet, Alapatt has not made any comment about DOOM’s book or Kweli’s accusations.
The Instagram post by Kweli can be found below: