The Digable Planets’ left-field hit single and MTV Buzz Bin staple “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” arrived in the middle of Gangsta Rap’s commercial heyday — three months after Dr. Dre’s The Chronic and nine months before Snoop Doggy Dogg’s Doggystyle. The East Coast-based trio — Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler, Craig “Doodlebug” Irving and Mary Ann “Ladybug Mecca” Vieira — was a tall glass of lemonade to Gangsta’s more visceral gin and juice, the flip side in Hip Hop’s ever-evolving road to cultural domination.
The Planets’ stripped-down, Jazz-infused 1993 debut, Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space), drew from the same creative well as De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, “conscious” artists with more on their minds than meets the ear (and groin). The horn-driven “Rebirth of Slick” (Cool Like Dat)” deftly traded verses from male to female and back again, name-checking everything from Miles Davis to light blue suede Pumas in the process. “La Femme Fetal” is, as Robert Christgau once noted, “the most humane, didactic and politically informed prochoice song ever recorded.” And the addictive “Swoon Units” presaged The Fugees’ gender-equal dynamics by at least a year.
The Planets’ 1994 follow-up, Blowout Comb, was more esoteric, less Jazz- and hook-driven, though no less effective. But it did sell less, and it wasn’t long before the trio broke up, citing the dreaded “creative differences.” Each went on to different projects — the best known being Butler’s Shabazz Palaces — before briefly reconvening in 2005 to tour (and no doubt garner a nice payday). They’ve played a few one-offs since, but now they’re back for another reunion tour, this time threatening to record an album of all new material.
This article appears in Jul 13-20, 2016.