Throwback Artist Bio: Digable Planets

Ask Butta how I zone “Man, Cleopatra Jones!”. Digable Planets was then, and still is the smoothest hip hop group the world has ever seen. Formed in 1987, the trio is comprised of Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler, Mariana “Ladybug Mecca” Vieira, and Craig “Doodlebug” Irving. In 1993 the band released the album Reachin (A New Refutation of Space and Time). What made this band so different from anything else that was out at the time was the way they had jazz-infused beats and string bass riffs that actually made you want to sit down and listen to what they had to say.

The band enjoyed tremendous success with the single Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat), which made it all the way to the top of the charts in the U.S which earned the group a grammy.

At the height of their success, the band all moved to Brooklyn, N.Y to put together their sophomore album Blowout Comb. In our opinion, the sophomore album was just as good as the first one was but critics found it to be darker. The band had taken stands on political issues and began to express themselves through their music, which is never mightily rewarded by the industry.

The Break-Up

Unfortunately for the Digable Planets, and the rest of the world, the group split-up at the beginning of 1995. In the same year the group appeared on the Red Hot Organization’s compilation album, Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool. The album, meant to raise awareness and funds in support of the AIDS epidemic in relation to the African American community, was heralded as “Album of the Year” by Time magazine.

The Make-Up

In February 2005, the trio reunited and embarked on a reunion tour, which was followed by the release of a compilation album titled Beyond the Spectrum: The Creamy Spy Chronicles. The album combined previously released material with remixes and B-sides that quite frankly did not enthrall the main-stream music fans, who had long since abandoned anything jazz-related.

Still Fire

The band released Digable Planets Live in 2017. Although it received almost no commercial acclaim, this was a seriously good album. Digable Planets is one of those bands that had lightning in a bottle, the original stuff is so good that we don’t need anything else. The album is filled with songs from the first two albums supported by actual jazz musicians playing along. You can also feel the chemistry the group has, and how much they are in love with the songs they deliver. You can hear that they are music fans just as much as the rest of us, make music you like, right? Live long and prosper Digable Planets, we love you.