About

One of the greatest rap full-lengths of all time. They don't come any more essential than this. Operation: Doomsday originally appeared on Fondle 'Em in 1999, and introduced MF DOOM to most of us outside the Tri State area. Daniel Dumile had been working undercover for some time, having disappeared when KMD splintered and his brother DJ Subroc died; a name change later and Zev Love X was MF DOOM, a supervillain behind a metal mask who would pioneer a trippier but no less biting form of East Coast boom bap. The album was well received at the time, but its importance has snowballed in the years since it was released - in 2023, its influence can be heard across the underground spectrum, in Los Angeles' beat scene, Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler, in Kaytranada, even in the UK's club landscape.

You could say that DOOM was just building on the streetwise surrealism of Kool Keith, but he possessed a unique swagger and production style that's been rinsed and repeated for over two decades now. He managed to do something special here, constructing skits from unfussy nerd culture - not the middle class nerd fare that generation x steered into the mainstream, but the kind of vivid sci-fi and comicbook TV trash that would belt out of flickering CRT boxes over Frosted Flakes on a Saturday, later inspiring Adult Swim. In between the skits, DOOM made neck-snapping beats out of forgotten disco and funk loops, rapping as if he'd swallowed a compendium of cultural phraseology and then belched it up, semi-digested. Every moment here, even if it isn't as developed as some of his later work (we highly recommend the crown jewel: King Gheedorah's "Take Me To Your Leader"), has been completely absorbed into the architecture of the era. Even when we can't see it, it's towering over us like a Roman archway. — (via Label)

Simultaneously hailed as an underground classic and cast aside as poorly produced backpack rap, Operation: Doomsday inaugurated the reign of MF Doom in underground rap from the early to mid-2000s. The pretext for the album is very similar to that of Marvel Comics supervillain Dr. Doom; after MF Doom, then known as Zevlove X, had been devastated by the death of his brother and K.M.D. accomplice, DJ Sub-Roc, in the early '90s, Elektra dropped his group and stopped the release of its second album, Black Bastards, due to its political message and, more specifically, its cover art. Doom was left scarred with a lingering pain that didn't manifest until the late '90s as hip-hop's only masked supervillain on Bobbito Garcia's Fondle 'Em Records. 

Carrying the weight of the past on his shoulders, Doom opens and closes Operation: Doomsday with frank and sincere lyrics. In between, however, many of the villain's rhymes are rather hard and piercing. On his subsequent material, he developed a more steady and refined delivery, but on this debut, Doom was at his rawest and, lyrically, most dexterous. The out-of-left-field edge of Doom's production -- which features '80s soul and smooth jazz mixed with classic drum breaks -- is indeed abstract at times, but his off-kilter rhymes are palatable and absent any pretentiousness. In fact, the album arguably contains some of the freshest rhymes one might have heard around the time of its release. There are more than enough obscure but fun references (i.e. "quick to whip up a script like Rod Serling" on "Go with the Flow" or "MCs, ya style needs Velamints" on "Dead Bent") and quotable jewels from the "on-the-mike Rain Man" to feed on. 

Nevertheless, one would be hard-pressed to overlook the low-budget mixing that mars some of the LP's presentation. For the hardcore Doom fans, the recorded-in-the-basement quality is appealing and representative of his persona as the underdog who "came to destroy rap." In contrast, given his contributions to hip-hop during the 2000s, the masked villain offers this explanation on "Doomsday": "Definition: supervillain/A killer who loves children/One who is well-skilled in destruction as well as buildin'." Even though this album is certainly not for everyone, you can easily respect from where the man is coming. — (via AllMusic)

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Label: Rhymesayers Entertainment, Metal Face Records
Format: 2x Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue
Country: US
Reissued: 2023 / Original Release: Oct 19, 1999
Genre: Hip Hop

File under: Hip Hop 90s
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