Showbiz Stunt Doubles: Doom & Montana

It's the latest rage in musical performances. Not lip synching your albums or on stage performances like Milli Vanilli or Ashlee Simpson did. That's a thing of the past, well for some. The latest fad in music involves being too lazy to go out on stage yourself, so you send out a music stunt double. They look enough like you to pass for the real thing, but discerning fans are always able to tell the real deal. There had been buzz for quite some time on the internet over Daniel Dumile aka "Zev Love X" aka "King Geedorah" aka "Viktor Vaughn", or most commonly known as "MF DOOM". The underground rap star was taking a break from shows and fooling people, or so he thought. His rapper character and act involves him wearing a metal mask (like comic book character Doctor Doom) on stage. However, his fans are smarter than that, and he's been revealed as people noticed scars and marks on the impostors at shows. You can check out the various impostor pics here at hiphopsite.com's forum. The artist is being smart about all this of course. His next album is aptly titled "Doomposter" and will address the Doom clone situation. According to his Wikipedia entry: "As explained by John Robinson and C-Rayz Walz, live lip-syncing and impostor-sending dating back to Rock The Bells in NYC (July 29, 2007) has been orchestrated by Dumile as both a marketing mechanism and a basis for understanding his new album" Hmm..Likely excuse for a lazy rap star, or clever marketing strategy? You decide. That brings us to teen sensation, Miley Cyrus, aka "Hannah Montana". She recently made headlines in the news for sending out a double on stage. According to the Associated Press: "A video posted on YouTube shows the 15-year-old entertainer, who stars on the hit Disney TV show "Hannah Montana," onstage as her character, dancing and singing onstage with a group of dancers and the Jonas Brothers, also on the "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus 'Best of Both Worlds'" tour. During the song, someone ushers her offstage via a trap door. Immediately, another girl dressed like the character "Hannah" in the same pink trench coat with blonde hair covering her face dances around, runs up stairs on the stage set and then quickly leaves the stage. While the double is holding a microphone for her less than a minute, the girl motions like she is singing. However, a rep for Miley said the switch was only for costume purposes." Check out the Montana YouTube video here. So Hannah's switch is definitely more innocent and acceptable than Doom's, but both have caused quite enough buzz. The question is how many of the Doom clones will he have as guest rappers on his "Doomposter" album? And will there be a Doom-Montana mashup album in the works? Let's hope not.