30 Years Ago… the jazz beatniks and the hip-hop homeboys and girls were all groovin’ to Digable Planets “Rebirth Of Slick”

 

30 Years Ago… the jazz beatniks and the hip-hop homeboys and girls were all on the same page & groovin’ to Digable Planets, they were the midwives of the “Rebirth Of Slick” because they were “Cool Like Dat”

Digable Planets were so cool, they were doing things that no other rappers – no other people from any profession – would even have thought of doing in 1993.

They gave themselves names like Butterfly, Ladybug Mecca and Doodlebug. They banged on about being an insect tribe, because insects are natural socialists who stick together. They used the word “jive”! Who else was using the word “jive” in 1993?

 

Other hip-hop may have used jazz samples, & Q-Tip may have been called The Abstract, but no-one else was taking it to unthought of dimensions.  Not only did they sample Art Blakely & The Jazz Messengers, but they did the funkiest thing they could do with it; they slowed right down. Why? Because their funk zooms like you hit the Mary Jane.

So, right at the peaks of gangsta rap Digable Planets created the softest sounding, peaceful dream-rap ever known. It was a direction that for a second – with Digable Planets on one side & Arrested Development on the other – felt as though it might be the future of rap. It wouldn’t be.

“Rebirth Of Slick” is groove like that, it’s smooth like that, it’s a 10 like that… we out!