OPINION: Every time I listen to the sophomore album from the New York-based trio, I feel myself trying to find my ’90s-era African medallion necklace.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
I’ve long had this fascination and curiosity about Digable Planets, the ‘90s-era rap group made up of Butterfly aka Ish, Ladybug Mecca aka Mecca and Doodlebug aka C-Knowledge, that gave us one of hip-hop’s most lauded records, “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat).” You know this song even if you don’t know that you know this song. It’s hip-hop canon at this point; the hook for the song alone is one of the most recitable and quotable hooks ever, and I genuinely mean that.
My curiosity and fascination with the group are rooted in my belief that they should have been WAY more popular than they were. I realize it’s wild to say about a rap group that won a Grammy Award in 1994 for the aforementioned song, but if you were around hip-hop in 1994, then you know that hip-hop didn’t care about Grammys back then. Their debut album, “Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space)” was a super smooth, jazzed-out album with the kind of lyrics you needed to listen to over and over again to catch all of the gems. Pretentious title aside, the album was a well-produced, well-written, perfectly ‘90s-era hip-hop record.
Maybe part of why they aren’t more vaunted (at least to me; perhaps they’re everybody’s favorite rap group and I’m trippin’) is that their sophomore album, “Blowout Comb,” released on October 18, 1994, deviated from that original blueprint and crashed headfirst into Blacknessville. And that isn’t to say that the first album wasn’t Black — any art created by Black people is Black. But the themes, tone, samples and messaging of “Blowout Comb” seemed to be crafted specifically for the Black community and the Black community alone.
The album is political, community-minded, heavier on references to the Five Percent Nation of Islam than its predecessor, funkier and super Brooklyn, New York. When the album dropped in 1994, I was 15 years old and had never been to Brooklyn, much less New York City, but listening to the singles and watching the videos allowed me to feel like I could almost taste Brooklyn. By the time I made my first trip to New York City in the summer of 2001, I found the version of New York City that Digable Planets shared with us via that album to be very accurate.
The more I’ve listened to the record over the years, which I do fairly often, the more it feels like an album both created of its time but also eternally, as one of the Blackest offerings ever, especially in hip-hop, similarly to how Black Mos Def’s album “Black on Both Sides” feels purely and authentically created for the Black community. While “Blowout Comb” was clearly influenced by the Five Percent Nation, the Black Panther influence was also present in its calls for unity, solidarity and Black Nationalism.
It’s that feeling that in listening to this record, I feel my sense of Blackness rise up out of the ashes. As soon as the album starts, my hair starts to grow into an afro and the sounds put me in the space of Black futurism. For instance, the lead single from the album “9th Wonder (Blackitolism)” might be one of the Blackest records ever created.
There’s something about the drums, the bass, the funk that feels so Black New York City it isn’t even funny. I’m listening to this record as I write right now and I promise you a black beret appeared out of nowhere. But there is nothing like listening to Mecca’s verse where she spits some mathematics:
“I’m 68 inches above sea level, 93 million miles above these devils…”
I have no idea why that is one of the most iconic lines I’ve ever heard in my entire life but it is. I listen to the entire record JUST for her to spit that one line. The whole album makes me feel like she does on this verse. I don’t know if I’d call it one of the best verses ever, but there is something so significant about her delivery of it that makes me feel like this could be the theme song (verse) for any podcast, documentary or show about Blackness and Black people.
“Blowout Comb” is chock full of records just like this, though I’m not sure any of them hit quite as hard as “9th Wonder (Blackitolism).” But the whole album has the same feel — lots of horns, Black beauty, appreciation for our culture and a call towards consciousness that might have been a bridge just too far in 1994. In 1994, Death Row Records was running hip-hop and Bad Boy Records was about to take over. Digable Planets’ vanta-Black, Public Enemy-style messaging might have gotten lost in the sauce of the changing of the hip-hop guard. But even today, I can’t listen to “Blowout Comb” without thinking about how this trio moved to New York City and created one of the most New York albums ever — that also manages to be a clarion call for Black unity and nationalism.
Even 30 years later, there are very few releases that have matched the energy of this record. Even the title of “Blowout Comb” is 100 percent a reference intended for and a nod to the Black community. Digable Planets might only have two projects, but those two are amazing and impactful.
To quote Digable Planets, they are “Blackity-Black, Blackity-Black.”
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio and host of the award-winning podcast, “Dear Culture” on theGrio Black Podcast Network. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest) but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said “Unknown” (Blackest).
