Louisvillians who need a reprieve from doomscrolling should pop up at the new spoken word poetry event Operation: Doomsday. The next installment in the series will be at the Highlands-Shelby Park branch of Louisville Free Public Library (1250 Bardstown Rd.) on Thursday, March 20. The event will feature local musicians, spoken word performers, and visual art, inspired by the music of hip-hop artist MF DOOM.
Hold up. Who is MF DOOM?
Daniel Dumile (July 13, 1971–October 31, 2020) was a child of immigrants from Trinidad and Zimbabwe, born in West London and raised in New York. Designated by the U.S. government as a “deportable alien” when he was only three years old, the story of his life is punctuated by anti-Black racism, police harassment, and legal entanglements, including challenges to his citizenship status and threats of statelessness. The loss of his younger brother—who was also his first musical collaborator—at a young age led him toward a solo performance career. He began developing his MF DOOM persona (inspired by Marvel Comics character Doctor Doom) on stages in Georgia in the mid-1990s. He released his debut “Operation: Doomsday” in 1999, followed by five more studio albums, two live albums, three compilation albums, 10 instrumental albums, seven collabs, and 14 singles before his death in 2020.
MF DOOM’s rap flow was conversational, with a technique based on wordplay and rhyme schemes rather than musical patterns and cadence schemes. But it was the themes of his lyrics that made him legendary in the hip-hop underground. His rhymes were vividly pictorial yet expressionistic, critical of the American state of affairs yet consistently entertaining.
So What is Operation: Doomsday?
Initially conceived in 2024 as a one-off music session to celebrate the 25-year anniversary of MF DOOM’s debut album “Operation: Doomsday,” the event of the same name has developed into a community of its own. It is now an ongoing series in the Louisville area.
“Here’s the hook: I am a scholar, not a professional musician, so I had to persuade my childhood friends Francisco and Ana Lucia to travel from Seattle and Oakland, respectively,” Marcel J. said in a statement to LEO. “They are both accomplished artists and were instrumental in running the project’s beta version.” Together, the friends curated a set of iconic MF DOOM tracks that could be performed live and compiled archival footage depicting what Marcel J.’s friend Francisco referred to as “the many faces of Doomsday.” “Francisco was wearing a Chiquita Banana costume as he said this. I remember seeing him struggling with adjusting the projector to screen a series of mushroom clouds in HD. Some Harmony Korine shit.”
The poetry aspect of Operation: Doomsday events is in precise alignment with Marcel J.’s interest and experience. He had stumbled across a rare vinyl album of Nicaraguan poet Carlos Martínez Rivas, on which the poet read his poem “Infierno de cielo.” “The underlying theme of the poem is the end of the world, and the rusty quality of the recording gives it a vibe more reminiscent of an MF DOOM skit than something you would typically find in a library,” Marcel J. said. “We found that incorporating rare gems surrounding world poetry into the overarching MF DOOM personas we invoked in our jam could lead to a much more serious project. The bad news was that my friends happen to be ‘very accomplished artists’ and had to travel back to their artsy lives on the West Coast. I’ve been told they have ‘responsibilities.'”
Marcel J. reached out to other artists (artists who are actually based in Louisville) and found his primary collaborators for the performance series: Mike O’Dell, founder and owner of The Groove Dojo, a drum school, guitar school, and music venue in La Grange; Jon Woo; and writer and actor Edward Hardin. Marcel J. then connected with KennyFresh, an Indiana Poet Laureate nominee, and Robin G., a poet, filmmaker, recording artist, and entrepreneur.
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The bilingual (English-Spanish) lyricism on display at Operation: Doomsday is counterbalanced musicians, including MIGHTILY on turntables, Wyatt Wolf on guitar, and Blase Groody on saxophone and keyboard. “And then, there is also Kuda, one of the most talented lyricists I have come across during my years conducting literary research in U.S. academia,” Marcel J. said.
Kuda Baby is a rap artist on the come up. His fusion of hyphy, crunk, and pop rap incorporates intricate wordplay that he describes as “pushing the boundaries of traditional rap while staying grounded in the reality of his Southern Indiana origins.”
Operation: Doomsday builds on Marcel J.’s experience collaborating with the Helsinki Poetry Connection and the Latin American Cultural Center of Finland while he was studying in Finland 2013–2015, as well as his work as a translator and judge for the Louder Than a Bomb Spoken Word Collective in Columbia while in a graduate program at the University of Missouri. “Having such an eclectic group of artists has elevated the project to an entirely new level,” he said.
“There is no grandiloquent reasoning behind Operation: Doomsday. It is a mere historical remark,” Marcel J. says of the ongoing performance series. “The same can be said about MF DOOM. In such a culturally vibrant city like Louisville, MF DOOM should—and will—have a solid following. It is just a matter of time and pressing the right buttons.”
The series is both a showcase of social justice-minded creatives in Louisville and a celebration of the legacy of MF DOOM. “If we can introduce a younger audience to MF DOOM’s works and show them that poetry does not necessarily need to be a soporific machine, our mission here will be accomplished,” Marcel J. said.
The next Operation: Doomsday will be at the Highlands-Shelby Park branch of Louisville Free Public Library (1250 Bardstown Rd.) on Thursday, March 20, followed by a ticketed event at The Whirling Tiger (1335 Story Ave.) on Friday, April 11, and a free event at Carmichael’s Bookstore (2720 Frankfort Ave.) on Thursday, April 17. Follow the series at doomsdayky.com for updates.
This article appears in Mar 14-27, 2025.
