Today in Hip-Hop History: MF DOOM’s Debut Album ‘Operation Doomsday’ Dropped 21 Years Ago

April 20, 1999, marks the day that the eclectic and iconic MF Doom launched his career with his debut record Operation Doomsday.

Coming off of his time as half the former duo KMD, Doom wasn’t ways the quirky character with the humorous rhetoric we know and love him as today. He suffered a great deal after the loss of co-KMD emcee, and younger brother, Subroc, after he was struck by a vehicle. Years would pass before DOOM would take his identification for Marvel character “Dr. Doom” and turn it into his own hip hop persona with the release of Operation Doomsday in 1999.

Containing 19 tracks, the album was blended together with skits from Hanna Barbera’s 1967 classic cartoon series Fantastic Four. Between the skits and the guest-starring of underground Hip Hop’s finest emcees and producers, like that of Cucumber Slice and MF Grimm, the album became an instant classic.

The odd blending of cartoon classics that were a staple of the generation’s childhood and underground lyricism only extended his already vast audience of Hip-Hop’s truest heads. With this, the album paved the way for his lineage of work that has become legendary for both the classic Hip-Hop listener and the new school crowd.