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Digable Planets Live

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9th Wonder

On March 1st, 1994, the Best Rap Performance Grammy went to a trio called Digable Planets. But they didn’t rest on their laurels at all. That same October, the Planets unveiled their creamy new cut “9th Wonder (Blackitolism),” which was the first single from the group’s sophomore LP Blowout Comb.

Early rap example “8th Wonder” by The Sugarhill Gang came out in 1980, and thus “9th Wonder” shows respect to the hip-hop past by its very title. From the first buzzy synthesizer tones of “9th Wonder,” it’s clear that this will be an unique sounding record. The vibes are warm and analog, and the lyrics swim in pools of reverb. As Larry Mizell Jr. described it in his liner notes for the LITA 2013 re-release of Blowout Comb, “…the lyrics themselves were noticeably low in the mix; they come at you almost subliminally, a pleasant dream half-remembered…” The drums are so present and distinct that you can actually smell the cigarette smoke curling around a mid-20th century jazz nightclub.

I bought this twelve inch back in ’95 during my DJ heyday. Other tracks that I was spinning that year included the dope remix of Aceyalone’s “Headaches and Woes” on the B-side of “Mic Check,” “I Don’t Like To Dream About Gettin Paid” by Tha Dogg Pound was a big one, and I definitely played the hell out of “Somethin That Means Somethin” by The Pharcyde. Digable Planets really forged something wonderful here and on the rest of Blowout Comb. Check it out! Written by Novocaine132

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Blowout Comb

I have to say from the git, the first time I heard Digable Planets I didn’t just sleep on them, I called in sick. Digable Planets? What kinda name is that? They call themselves doodlebug and wha? Fuck that shit is corny. Hearing them wasn’t better. The music’s all right, but it was the way they chanted their choruses like mantras, and sounded like they was on Actifed. I guess it just reminded me of too many bad poetry readings.

So, what do I think of their newest? Blowout Comb? I’m sorry to admit, it’s well, a Blowout Comb (or a pick as we used to call them in Colorado). Their chant thing still gets to me (“May 4th”), but the music on this album is so…beautiful.

“Black Ego” with its Roberta Flack cello and bass, noodley-blues guitar is !!!!!, and the lyrics fed my hed. They follow it up with “Dog It”-sax, vibes and… Damn! “Dial 7 (axioms of creamy spies)” has Sara Webb breathily singing “Black people, Black people, steal your mind back/don’t die in their wilderness. fuck that.”

“Dial 7″ is one of my favorite songs since the Young Disciple’s “Freedom Suite.” “The Art of Easing” samples Bobbi Humphrey (!). OK, OK, OK. I might’ve been wrong. (This review originally appeared in The Rocket and was written by Carlos Walker.)

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Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space)

According to the excellent podcast “Fresh Off The Spaceship” hosted by Larry Mizell Jr. and Martin Douglas, rapper Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler spent his youth splitting time between New York and Seattle. He graduated high school at Garfield and then moved to New York City, landing an internship at Sleeping Bag Records. In 1992, his trio called Digable Planets put out a viral single called “Rebirth Of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” which immediately climbed the Billboard charts. By ’93 Digable dropped a debut album, and the group would go on to win a Best Rap Performance Grammy in 1994. Go to KEXP.org to hear this interview with Ishmael, and be sure to check out the entire “Fresh Off The Spaceship” series!

That 1993 debut album was called Reachin’ (A New Refutation Of Time And Space), and it was huge all over the world. Music gatekeeper Pitchfork put it this way, “They personify the balance they promote. It’s an album that questions the very fabric of our existence while celebrating its nuances. As Digable Planets refute the boundaries of their continuum, their imagined cosmology creates a jazzy, spatial anomaly full of sonic wonders and game theory.” In 2017, Rolling Stone celebrated the 25th anniversary of “Rebirth Of Slick,” writing that, “Reachin’ offered a revolutionary spin on hip-hop, smoothing out the genre’s hard edges with a sound that relied heavily on jazz samples and intricate lyricism that drew heavily from literature and revolutionary politics.”

The first lines of “Rebirth Of Slick” go like this, “We like the breeze flow straight out of our lids/Them they got moved by these hard rock Brooklyn kids.” Track two “Pacifics” begins with, “Who Me? I’m coolin in New York, chillin in New York,” and the chorus is based on a “New York is red hot” sample. The track “Where I’m From” has lyrics like, “We be reading Marx where I’m from/The kids be rockin’ Clarks where I’m from/You turn around your cap, you talk over a beat/And dig some sounds boomin’ out a jeep.” As a Seattle rap listener at the time, I was sure that “Where I’m From” and “Rebirth Of Slick” were love letters to Brooklyn. I always thought of Reachin’ as a New York record, and Digable as a New York group, period. But as Ishmael returned to Seattle, joining groups Cherrywine and then Shabazz Palaces, he reestablished his Seattle residency and identity. I am finally beginning to understand how some could see Reachin’ as a ‘Northwest’ hip-hop album. I’m sure that Ish will always have a dual love of both cities, and pontificators like me will have to resist assigning him to one or the other. At the end of “Where I’m From,” the answer is repeated over and over, “Everywhere, every-everywhere, everywhere, every-everywhere.” I guess Ish is from everywhere. Written by Novocaine132

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