THE SOURCE: A Beginner’s Guide To Digable Planets |
Digable Planets Set For Debut Australian Tour |
"Reachin’ is at once vintage and futuristic, a vision for a new utopia influenced by the past, daring to imagine insulated black communities as separate from Earth—unified, Afrocentric, and untarnished by subjugation. It’s a world within a world, complete with its own language and monuments and dogma—comparing New York to a museum, its graffiti as much high art as the work of Dadaist Salvador Dalí. Digable Planets make their own pre-internet information exchange, where traveling a few blocks could mean an introduction to a completely new milieu, where little ever gets lost in translation, where the inspiration for ideas occurs as spontaneously as a trumpet solo."
- Sheldon Pierce, Pitchfork 2/23/2018
- Sheldon Pierce, Pitchfork 2/23/2018
Ishamael Butler On Shabazz Palaces, The Digable Planets Reunion And The Secret To Career Continuity |
Digable Planets To Reunite For Seattle Show |
"The group’s debut album, 1993’s Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space), is very good, but all the promise of the project was realized with its follow-up. Blowout Comb is an album of forces pulling in different directions, exerting tension and stretching into new forms. On a purely sonic level, the music, produced by the group, is beautiful and goes down so easily it’s almost disconcerting. The mixture of soul and jazz samples and live instrumentation paints an eminently listenable late-night atmosphere: there are clouds of vibraphone, drum loops firmly in the pocket, creaky Fender Rhodes lines, tasteful horn accents, all of it anchored by warm, snug, and instantly memorable basslines. The general sonic approach became more prominent as the 90s wore on, as these kinds of crate-digging, rare-groove types continued to mine old soul and jazz records for samples, eventually transforming into a kind of supper-club trip-hop... But Digable made the approach feel completely organic and integrated with their broader musical goal of expanding rap’s reach and deepening its connection to music history."
-Mark Richardson, Pitchfork 6/25/2013
-Mark Richardson, Pitchfork 6/25/2013
Digable Planets Reissue "Blowout Comb": Butterfly Looks Back |
For Shabazz Palaces' Ishmael Butler, Musical Innovation Is A Family Legacy |
"It was hard to tell who was having more fun: the band or the audience. Once people got out of their seats in the introduction, they never sat back down. Masses ended up running to the front pit to dance to their favorite cut. As Butler announced that they’d have to wrap it up to keep within curfew, there was audible frustration and disappointment. This was the night people had been holding out for, and it exceeded every expectation. Then the walking bass line to the band’s hit “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” kicked in, and it was all smiles and head bobs."
-Dusty Henry, Consequence Of Sound 1/2/2016
-Dusty Henry, Consequence Of Sound 1/2/2016
Digable Planets Announce Reunion Tour |
Ishmael Butler Talks New Digable Planets Music And The Tide Pod Challenge |
"With Digable Planets, it was often difficult to tell what came first, the rap or the jazz. All three emcees are skilled in rhymes and flow. This skill set is important—sometimes, when a performer exhibits skill in more than one genre, it is too easy to conclude that one skill is a gimmick. With the number of effectively crafted songs on the new live album, it is obvious that Digable Planets have actual skill without gimmicks."
-Dodie Miller- Gould, Lemon Wire 7/9/2017
-Dodie Miller- Gould, Lemon Wire 7/9/2017
Digable Planets In Perth |
Today In Hip-Hop History: Digable Planets Releases 'Reachin' (A New Refutation Of Time And Space) 23 Years Ago |