Digable Planets’ 1994 album “Blowout Comb” is one of the darkest albums of all time

I even have long been fascinated and inquisitive about Digable Planets, the ’90s rap group that included Butterfly a.k.a. Ish, Ladybug Mecca a.k.a. Mekka, and Doodlebug a.k.a. C-Knowledge, who gave us one of hip-hop’s most lauded records, The Rise of Slick (cool as Dat).” You know this song, even in the event you do not know you recognize it. It’s hip-hop canon at this point; the song’s theme itself is one of the most recited and quoted hooks of all time, and I actually mean it.

My curiosity and fascination with this group stems from the belief that they ought to be MUCH more popular than they were. I understand it’s crazy to discuss a rap group which won a Grammy Award in 1994 to the song in query, but in the event you were around hip-hop in 1994, you recognize that hip-hop didn’t care about the Grammys back then. Their debut album “Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space)” was an exceptionally smooth, jazzy album with lyrics that you simply needed to take heed to time and again to choose up all the gems. The pretentious title aside, the album was a well-produced, well-written hip-hop record that was perfectly 90s.

Perhaps one of the reasons they are not more praised (a minimum of to me; possibly they’re everyone’s favorite rap group and I’m on the fence) is that their second album, Blowout Comb, released on October 18, 1994 , deviated from the original plan and crashed headfirst into Blacknessville. And that does not imply the first album wasn’t black – any artwork created by black people is black. However, the themes, tone, samples, and message of “Blowout Comb” seemed tailor-made for the black community and the black community alone.

The album is political, community-minded, has more references to the Five Percent Nation of Islam than its predecessor, is funnier, and is super Brooklyn, New York. When the album was released in 1994, I used to be 15 years old and had never been to Brooklyn, much less New York, but listening to the singles and watching the videos made me feel like I used to be almost in Brooklyn. Before I made my first trip to New York in the summer of 2001, I discovered the version of New York that Digable Planets gave us through this album to be very accurate.

The more I take heed to this album over the years, which I do very often, the more it seems to me that it is an album made for its time, but additionally for all time, as one of the darkest offerings of all time, especially in hip-hop, similarly about how Black Mos Def’s album “Black on Both Sides” feels purely and authentically made for the black community. While “Blowout Comb” was clearly influenced by the Five Percent Nation, Black Panther’s influence was also present in its calls for unity, solidarity and Black nationalism.

It’s this sense that after I take heed to this album, I feel my sense of Blackness rising from the ashes. As soon as the album starts, my hair starts growing into an afro and the sounds take me to the space of Black futurism. For example, the album’s lead single “9th Wonder (Blackitolism)” could also be one of the blackest records ever made.

There’s something about the drums, bass, and funk that feels so New York black that it isn’t even funny. I’m listening to this album as I write this and I promise the black beret got here out of nowhere. But there’s nothing higher than hearing Mecca’s verse where she spits out some math:

“I’m 68 inches above sea level, 93 million miles above these devils…”

I do not know why this is one of the most iconic lines I even have ever heard in my life, but it surely is. I take heed to the entire album JUST to spit out this one line. The whole album makes me feel like she does on this verse. I do not know if I’d call it one of the best lines of all time, but there’s something so meaningful about her rendition that I feel prefer it might be the theme song (line) of any podcast, documentary, or show about blackness and black people.

“Blowout Comb” is full of records like this, though I’m undecided any of them hit as hard as “9th Wonder (Blackitolism).” But the whole album has the same vibe – lots of horns, black beauty, an appreciation for our culture and a call to awareness that in 1994 might need been a bridge too far. In 1994, Death Row Records was recording hip-hop and Bad Boy Records was about to take over. The Vanta-black message of Digable Planets in the style of Public Enemy might have been lost in the sauce related to the change of hip-hop guard. But even today, I can not take heed to “Blowout Comb” without interested by how this trio moved to New York and created one of the most New York albums ever – which is also a transparent call for black unity and nationalism.

Even 30 years later, there are few releases that match the energy of this album. Even the title “Blowout Comb” is 100% a reference to and a nod to the black community. Digable Planets may only have two projects, but these two are amazing and impactful.

To quote Digable Planets, they’re “Blackness-Blackness, Blackness-Blackness.”