Digable Planets was a trip in the early 1990s and can still take you out of this world, or reveal familiarities, perhaps forgotten, in this world. DP consisted of Ishmael "Butterfly" Butler, Mariana "Ladybug Mecca" Vieira, and Craig "Doodlebug" Irving, and their joints were fly, fly, fly, with revolutionary lyrics, samples layered on groovy sampled layers, with the dopest lyrical code, and jazz stylings that would inspire Madlib.
The 1994 album Blowout Comb is a lesson in the Black radical tradition. The cover art is a homage to Emory Douglas, Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party, invoking the aesthetic, design, and layout of the Black Panther Party Newspaper. In the joint "The Art of Easing," the Digable Planets crew offers a syllabus for "Black Studies 700 the art of easing."
"Black studies 700 the art of easing/
I'm your conductor instructor Mr. Castro/
Take a look at your syllabus/
You are required to be plushed out, and dipped daily/
Guess, army suits, Timbs, Lo, whatever/
Quiet please in the back, quiet please/
You will have two texts/
And finally, we are taking a field trip/
To the Ingersoll Houses/
Projects speak perfect slang/
Black Caesar, Superfly, Goldie/
These are the images we want you portrayed in/
Please, could you be quiet Mr. Simmons/
Thank you."