Woods' Tape Deck Classics : MF Doom : Operation Doomsday

When I was about 11-12 years old, discovering new music and digging through my dads massive record collection was all I cared about next to skateboarding. The two went seamlessly hand-in-hand. Watching the music in skate videos flow with the lines, the songs matching perfectly with the snaps of boards, it was perfect. Up until this point, I mainly listened to older punk and metal vinyl/tapes my dad had, but around this time, 1999-2000, rap was huge - from DMX, to all the Cash Money records, Dr.Dre had just put out his comeback record and although these all have their place in the scheme of things, it wasn't really me. A friend of mine I grew up skateboarding with gave me a bootleg tape his older brother had, and it completely changed hip-hop for me from that point on. It was a bootlegged tape of MF Doom's debut, Operation Doomsday (which wouldn't see a real tape release until over a decade later when it was re-released). The album was released in 1999 on Bobbito Garcia's label, Fondle 'Em Records in NYC. The album is very sample heavy, ranging from Isaac Hayes, the Deele, James Brown, and even The Beatles and his verses were much more witty, and sharp compared to what I was used to. It wasn't your typical gangster shit that was huge at the time, and it wasn't that 80's Sugar Hill Gang/Afrika Bambatta nonsense either (again, those have their place - just not with me). I was sucked in immediately...I remember getting rides from my mom to local record shops and annoying the shit out of the employees asking for more artists similar to Doom. The lo-fi style production with Doom's vocal delivery and weirder transitions into different pieces music would be the start of how I would view hip-hop. The start of my love for NYC/East Coast hip hop - and the start of start of what I think hip-hop could be.

-Woods