Today in Hip-Hop — October 19: Operation: Doomsday and Internal Affairs, the Day Godzilla Hit the Underground Twice

October 19, 1999. Two debut solo albums land on the same Tuesday, 27 years ago today. MF DOOM drops Operation: Doomsday on Bobbito Garcia’s Fondle ‘Em label. Pharoahe Monch drops Internal Affairs on Rawkus. Here’s the jewel nobody frames this way: both records are quietly built on Toho’s Godzilla universe. One got a crew of kaiju aliases on the credits. The other got a lawsuit from Toho itself.

The Villain Comes Back From Monsta Island

Before the mask there was Zev Love X: KMD, a dead brother (DJ Subroc), and an album, Black Bastards, that Elektra shelved over its politics and cover art. Operation: Doomsday is the comeback written as a Marvel origin story. DOOM produced the whole thing himself, looping Sade’s “Kiss of Life” under the title track and turning the Scooby-Doo theme into something sinister on “Hey!” Check the credits on “Who You Think I Am?”: Rodan, Megalon, King Ghidra, Kong. Those are Monsta Island Czars, the MF Grimm-founded crew whose aliases riff on Toho’s kaiju. DOOM himself shows up as King Ghidra, the three-headed gold dragon that later became King Geedorah.

Monch Samples the Monster, Toho Sends the Lawyers

Across town, Monch walked out of Organized Konfusion and went harder. The lead single was “Simon Says”, with a hook built on Akira Ifukube’s theme from 1992’s Godzilla vs. Mothra. It got into the Hot 100 at No. 97, then into Charlie’s Angels and Boiler Room, and the remix pulled in Method Man, Redman and Busta Rhymes. Then Toho sued over the uncleared sample in 2001 and distribution of Internal Affairs was halted. One of the best rap debuts of the decade sat out of print for 20 years and only hit streaming for its 20th anniversary in 2019.

The Fondle ‘Em record went on to become the blueprint for the next 25 years of underground rap. The Rawkus record disappeared because of one sample. Same Tuesday, same monster, opposite fates.

We made an Operation: Doomsday tee for the heads who were there before the mask went mainstream. And for the walls, the Godzilla atomic neon sign is the one monster nobody has to clear. Deeper DOOM lore lives in our MF DOOM merch guide.

Also Today in Hip-Hop

• 1999 — Handsome Boy Modeling School, So… How’s Your Girl? Prince Paul and Dan the Automator’s debut on Tommy Boy came out the same day. October 19, 1999 is ridiculous.
• 1993 — Black Moon, Enta da Stage (33 years). Da Beatminerz’ basement sound on Nervous Records, 18-year-old Buckshot and the debut of Smif-N-Wessun. The “I Got Cha Opin” remix rides Barry White’s “Playing Your Game, Baby”. Duck Down grew out of this. Rep the Moon.
• 1993 — Eazy-E, It’s On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa. His answer to The Chronic debuted at No. 5 and went double platinum in 1994. It was the last project Eazy released in his lifetime.
• 1993 — Erick Sermon, No Pressure. The Green-Eyed Bandit’s solo debut on Def Jam reached No. 2 on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart.

Stay creative — The Custom Creative Team