Although never a big hip hop fan, I’d always been dimly aware of Brooklyn trio, Digable Planets. I suspect it was because I used to get their name wrong, thinking it was either Digible Planets or in moments of extreme brain fog, Dirigible Planets. It wasn’t just that though. I say I was always dimly aware of their existence and having listened today to their debut album, Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space), I felt as though several of the jazz samples which they used in tracks on the album played out in the background to moments in my life during the 1990s. I can’t give you any specifics, and I’m talking on a subconscious level - so subconscious that I nearly blurted out “Fuck! I haven’t heard this in years!” when the album reached the superb Nickel Bags - but I found that somewhere in me, I knew this music and had always responded to it.
Forgive the overt self-psychology, but it potentially speaks to where my cultural receptors were tuned to in early 1993. I didn’t hate myself and want to die, so grunge was overlooked while I absorbed 60s guitar music. Similarly, I didn’t see South Central L.A. as my spiritual home, so had no connection to gangsta rap and why would I when the music and attitude of Digable Planets was friendlier, sexier and cooler than the tawdry world of the gangsta rappers.
Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat) is indicative of the vibe and theme on the Reachin’ album which in track after track talks about living your best life while taking the listener through an aural lecture on jazz music and how it feeds into the group’s sound. And what could be better than hanging out with cool new friends who want to expose you to new sounds? It took me 30 years to take it from a subconscious acquaintance to a committed meeting, but I’m glad I have.
John Peel was also keen to get to know Digable Planets better after playing Rebirth of Slick, but lamented the fact that he didn’t, yet, have a copy of their album. “They’ve probably got it already on the really cool programmes, said he, bitterly….”
Video courtesy of Digable PlanetsVEVO
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