CRUISING IN A WHITE NOVA IN A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY

words Julie Mondor shutter courtesy of Graffiti PR

The newly reunited Digable Planets reminisce about the past and tell us about their future.

At 15, I got my first boombox with a CD player in it for Christmas. For a long time I only owned 2 CDs, one of which was Digable Planet’s Blowout Comb. Obviously, and not simply due to a lack of variety, this CD turned in my boombox incessantly. To this day, I must insist on how Digable Planets’ two albums, Reachin’ and Blowout Comb, alongside DJ Shadow’s Entroducing and Beck’s Odelay, opened me to a richer world of music and changed my future expectations for any other music, inside or out of the hip-hop genre.

At 15, I had never before heard anything like Digable Planets’ mellowed-out rhymes and jazz-infused beats. I would never have imagined that 10 years after buying their album, I would find myself sitting around laughing about "Casingles" (you know those $3 singles on cassette tapes that actually had instrumentals on them?) with no other than Cee Knowledge a.k.a Doodlebug, one of the three rappers that make up the recently reunited Digable Planets. I still can hardly believe it today that, as I listen to Doodlebug laughing on my tape recorder, I can also hear Ishmael Butler, a.k.a Butterfly of Digable Planets, across the room jamming in the background on a few guitars and a flute with the legendary keyboardist/composer Brian Jackson of Gil-Scott Heron fame.

So much press has been devoted to dissecting the cause of Digable Planets’ separation in the ’90s. It seems that today, given their recent reunion, it is more productive to ask the trio what it was that brought them together in the first place and what reunited them 10 years later. Ladybug Mecca named Butterfly’s grandmother’s old white nova as the setting for the group’s inception: "we’d drive around, laugh, talk about music. We were blown away by each other’s lyrics and knew we had to come together."

"We all started out loving music, loving hip hop," Butterfly explains. "We came out in the days when the materialism that is present now didn’t really have a stranglehold on the mentality of the artist. We lived together. We struggled together. But we didn’t see it as a struggle. Everything that happened to us was a blessing. We’d get a local show and think, ‘wow, we made it.’ The reason why we made it was because it was always about getting what we could get out of our efforts, creativity and going out and performing. But no matter what, if we didn’t get anything or not, we were going to be still doing it."

For these three emcees, writing lyrics was second nature. Ladybug claims she always had the habit of writing her thoughts down while exploring themes of beauty and injustice. She was influenced by a selection of what she calls "inspired women," namely MC Lyte and Queen Latifah. As a kid, Doodlebug, whose mother was a teacher, was always reading some book or another, especially science fiction, which can in part explain the space-age motif in Digable lyrics. Butterfly names Jalal Mansur Nurriddin of the Last Poets as his main inspiration; the counterculture writing and political activism of this poetry collective made a huge impact on Butterfly’s own socially-aware lyrics.

In addition to their lyrical preoccupations, the Digable trio, who produce their own beats, are devoted to music and know that jazz is not just a type of music—it is a way of life that involves experimentation and collaboration. Ladybug recalls the beginnings of the Digable Planet’s affair with jazz and soul: "Butterfly and Doodle dug into their parents’ record collection, and noticed certain piano or guitar licks that stood out. These music collections were a place of serious knowledge and education." Samples from Roy Ayers and Curtis Mayfield albums found their way into Digable beats, but "it was Parliament that really inspired us to develop the whole space theme," Butterfly explains, "and Sun Ra, who was first to come out with "space is the place." It was free jazz, out-thinking kind of stuff. Later on we were given the opportunity to work with some of these artists."

In fact, Doodlebug released a single named "Space is the place" under the moniker Cee Knowledge in 2002. As a producer, Doodlebug, who has a studio in his house, loves to play around with his Trinity synth. "I’ll go in there, listen to a few records, get an idea for a beat, add a few layers and bring the tune to life." In terms of inspiration from hip-hop artists, Butterfly names off a wide variety within the genre, from Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince to NWA. The rapper holds a particular reverence for De La Soul: "their album 3 feet High and Rising really was the record that flipped hip hop on its head because of the way it was put together and the concepts. That album to me is the pinnacle of modern hip hop: that much sampling and skits between the songs is tradition which has lasted ’til today."

Since music brought these three together, it was the love of same that reunited them after a long separation. "None of us ever left music," Doodlebug explains, "it was time to bring those energies back together and see what would happen." Ladybug sums up the reunion with the fact that they missed each other: "we met up to compare notes and we all knew we had to get back together after this time of space and growth. It is like a family reunion. On tour we’ll be rocking with a DJ and a band. This is an opportunity to jam and come up with new material, and work with whole new ideas such as incorporating visuals into our performances."

During their reunion tour, Digable Planets will be accompanied by DJ Jedi on the turntables, Bubba Jones on Bass, Richie Williams on Drums and Brian Jackson on keys. They’ll be performing old Digable Planets tracks as well as some material from their solo efforts. This tour will not only be an opportunity to build anticipation for the forthcoming Digable Planets’ reunion LP, but it will also allow for each rapper to draw attention to his or her side projects. Ladybug Mecca will be promoting her new and exquisite solo album, Trip the Light Fantastic, which was released on June 28. Doodlebug, a.k.a Cee Knowledge, will be spreading news about his band, The Cosmic Funk Orchestra, and Volume 3 of his mixtape series, the Cosmic Funk Essentials. Butterfly, or Ish, will be representing his band, Cherrywine, whose album Bright Black was in Rolling Stone Magazine’s top ten of 2003.

www.ladybugmecca.com

www.cherrywine.net

www.ceeknowledge.com