It is hard to argue that any era of music was more exciting and groundbreaking than the East Coast Hip-hop scene in the ’90s. Every city from New York City to Philadelphia to Maryland had a hand in cultivating the unique sound that inspired this column in the first place. While hip-hop is far from done growing and a lot of die-hard 90’s heads dismiss much of the new, exciting innovations happening in the genre today, there is something undeniably special about this era of the genre. With the boom of rappers that appeared in the 90s, very few deserve more love and admiration than the trio Digable Planets.
The group consists of Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler, Craig “Doodlebug” Irving, and Mariana “Ladybug Mecca” Vieira. Together, they formed the jazzy, soulful trio that released two critically acclaimed and artistically ambitious albums that still sound refreshing to this day. The trio slowly formed throughout the late 1980s with Butler and Irving first connecting in Philadelphia. Vieria, a Maryland native, met Irving while they were attending the prestigious Howard University in Washington D.C. The trio was signed to Pendulum Records in 1992 with their classic debut Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space) hitting the shelves a year later. It only took one more year for Digable Planets’ name to be cemented in the hip-hop history book. Their 1994 LP Blowout Comb saw the band lift their hip-hop/jazz fusion to a more mature and polished level.
That brings us to this week’s Golden Age Thursday video. To promote Blowout Comb, which is now an opus not only for the trio but hip-hop as a whole, the three joined The Jon Stewart Show in 1994 for a performance of “9th Wonder (Blackitolism)”. Back by a live band, the deep grooves and funk influence of the instrumental gets elevated as the trio delivers electrical vocal performances. Their natural chemistry is on full display as they navigate live TV with ease.
