Operation: Doomsday

Operation: Doomsday (Stylized as "OPERATION: DOOMSDAY") is the debut studio album by rapper MF DOOM, marking his return to the hip-hop scene after the demise of his group KMD. The album was released through Fondle 'Em Records on April 20, 1999, and reissued by Sub Verse Records in 2001 with a slightly altered track listing. Operation: Doomsday has been ranked as one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time. A remastered edition of the original version was released in 2011.

Following his debut in the late-1980s, Daniel Dumile, then known as Zev Love X, suffered a series of unfortunate setbacks, including the death of his brother and fellow KMD member DJ Subroc and the subsequent abandonment of the group's second studio album Black Bastards by Elektra Records due to its political message and cover art. After the untimely death of his brother and the disbanding of KMD in 1993, Zev Love X left the hip-hop community and would suffer years of homelessness and despair. In 1997 he would re-emerge as MF DOOM, covering his face at shows and releasing singles on Bobbito Garcia's label Fondle 'Em Records. The three singles released generated enough buzz for Garcia to agree to sign DOOM for an album.

As an underground rap album, Operation: Doomsday is a lo-fi recording, with MF DOOM producing bedroom electro. Despite being an earthly work born from tragedy, it revisits the cartoon pleasure of late-1980s hip-hop. The debut album features dense rhyme schemes over tracks composed from a collage of R&B, cartoon samples, and elevator music. It is embroidered with an array of samples and snippets, ranging from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series Fantastic Four and Scooby-Doo to the 1982 hip-hop film Wildstyle to English sophisti-pop band Sade. Operation: Doomsday indulges in quiet storm balladry that evokes a sense of loss, expressing smooth jazz loops which bring balance to muffled soundscapes. Throughout the album, MF DOOM effectually rhymes over the original musical backgrounds atop minimal percussion.

The pretense for the concept behind Operation: Doomsday was reminiscent of that of Marvel Comics supervillain Dr. Doom, with a series of terrible setbacks and tragedy culminating in the birth of a villainous persona. After suffering the devastating death of his brother and their group being dropped from their record label, MF DOOM was left emotionally scarred. His lingering pain manifested in the form of a masked hip-hop supervillain who wishes to rule the world for its own good on Operation: Doomsday. In addition, the debut album features thematic skits and interludes which continue the comic book narrative beginning in the opening track all through to a spoken word monologue by E. Mason alongside guest appearances from MF DOOM's Monsta Island Czars collective.

With an erratic thought process, MF DOOM delivers sharp-witted stream-of-consciousness rhymes in a deteriorating yet steadfastly murky flow. At the center of Operation: Doomsday lies a bent towards free-form lyricism and pop-culture references. Doom uses a raw and lyrically dexterous delivery to recite palatable, off-kilter rhymes containing obscure references. His abstract rapping is laced with disparate word associations grounded by tongue-in-cheek humor. Much of the album's lyrical content displays -MF DOOM- in emotional disorder. The solo debut album acts as a lengthy exercise in musical therapy, with death hanging over throughout, both musically and lyrically. Drawing from the weight of his past, Operation: Doomsday is compact with frank, sincere lyrics and hard, piercing rhymes

Operation: Doomsday has been heralded as an underground classic that established MF DOOM's rank within the underground hip-hop scene during the early to mid-2000s. The album has had a vast, long-lasting influence on contemporary underground rap and independent hip-hop artists. Writing for streaming service Tidal, Dylan Green and Donna-Claire Chesman called the album, "a blueprint for all of independent rap." They cite the "dusty cartoon samples" of its lo-fi production, MF DOOM's preference for keeping anonymous, his "stream-of-consciousness flows" and the self-sustenance ethos that led to self-producing the entire studio album himself as essential elements both driving Operation: Doomsday as well as serving a source of inspiration for countless artists worldwide.