In 1994, a trio of young, unparalleled Hip-Hop creators won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat).” Up against megawatt contemporaries like Dr. Dre & Snoop Doggy Dogg, Naughty By Nature, and Cypress Hill, Digable Planets repped for the alternative Hip-Hop element much like Arrested Development had a year before. Imbued from the beginning with an aesthetic complexity that borrowed from well-established schools of thought like Afrofuturism while maintaining an unwavering devotion to the unexplored, members Ishmael “Ish” Butler (f/k/a Butterfly), Craig “C Know the Doodlebug” Irving, and Mary Ann “Ladybug Mecca” Vieira were undeniably Hip-Hop from a sonic standpoint, but with a debut LP title like Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space), their presence expanded the notion of what MCs could explore within the relative confines of structured music.
With the group’s recent announcement of a handful of national tour dates, they received an outpouring of adulation and support, proof that despite not having released new material since 1994’s Blowout Comb they retain the same gravitational pull in today’s musical landscape as they did two decades ago. Ahead of their anticipated performance at the 2016 Essence Fest in New Orleans, Digable Planets spoke with Ambrosia for Heads about their past, current, and future orbits.
Ambrosia for Heads: Between artists like Kamasi Washington working with Kendrick Lamar and others exploring inter-genre sounds like Terrace Martin, there are elements of today’s Hip-Hop that seem to echo the Jazz-Rap sound of the era from which you emerged. Is there some kind of special symbiosis between the two genres that doesn’t exist with others?
Ish: I don’t know if it’s about what people are calling the genre as it is more so that all music goes together. I don’t really see it breaking down into genres like that. So it’s probably more like those guys’ relationship and influences and then merging those things in a way that fits them together. I just…I don’t know, I just don’t really hear much Jazz in what’s out.
Ambrosia for Heads: Most would agree that you were pioneers of the Jazz-Rap movement. Is that a description of your sound you agree with, or do you find it stifling?
Ish: I don’t find it stifling, I just don’t think it’s an accurate description of the account of the etymology of us or anybody else. So many people came before us not only in Hip-Hop but just in music who made the structural pathways that we ended up walking down, branching off of and rejoining at some point. It’s just the titles of stuff that I don’t really rock with.
Ambrosia for Heads: You certainly seemed to take advantage of the platform you had to bring attention to social issues during your Grammy Awards acceptance speech in 1993. In it, you mentioned the financial disparity, namely the homeless people in the streets outside the ceremony and those who spent hundreds of dollars on seats in the theater. Is that something you collectively wanted to use that time for, or was it more of a spur-of-the-moment message that came to you organically?
Ish: It was something that was already on our minds. I mean, we saw things that way. We saw disparities, and we still do. We didn’t think to talk about it [that night], you know what I’m sayin’? We didn’t think we were gonna win [all three laugh]. So we definitely weren’t planning on what to say.
Ambrosia for Heads: With that shock of winning, what was the energy like at that moment when you walked on stage? Did you feel present in the moment?
Ladybug: I don’t remember much about that night at all. The only thing I remember most is performing but walking up there and afterwards…it’s not even a blur. I don’t remember anything. It just didn’t matter. My mind and my heart were elsewhere at that time.
Ambrosia for Heads: Blowout Comb is arguably your most controversial work to date. In the political context of today’s climate, particularly in light of the Black Lives Matter movement and what is becoming a resurgent civil rights movement, if that LP were to come out today, do you think the message within it would need any tweaking?
Ish: Well, it really did come out today. Music isn’t just about the time it was released and was on the Billboard charts or eligible for awards, you know what I’m sayin’? That’s all marketing at work rather than art or emotion. So, that being said, if it came out today…I don’t know. I was lookin’ at the Janis Joplin documentary [Janis: Little Girl Blue] and it was the same stuff as now. It’s America, you know what I’m sayin’? The things that have been here have been happening since Day 1, and it looks like they’re gonna keep them going pretty much the same way.
