Dial 7 video shoot ~ behind the scenes

This is a german hip hop show from the 90s featuring a behind the scenes look at the filming process for Digable's "Dial 7 (Axioms of Creamy Spies)" video, and includes brief interview footage with Ish and co. Fast forward to 48:30

Tune: Cee Knowledge & Cosmisc Funk Orchestra - Bandits

best shit i've heard from cee know in a while. this is smooth.

1992 Digable Planets Press Kit

1992 Digable Planets Press Kit

Digable on Hot 97 in '94

Digable rhyming on Hot 97 in 1994 with Fu-Schnickens & O.C.

ish bloggin at gorilla vs bear!

this is fantabulous... a selection of his faves circa '94. nuff said.

ISHMÆL BUTLER OF SHABAZZ PALACES/DIGABLE PLANETS TAKEOVER OF GORILLA VS BEAR

blowout comb vinyl reissue

one of earth's all-time greatest albums. new liner notes by larry mizell jr. free poster. and the album inlay card is done the proper way, i.e. reproduced on 4 sides on the inner record sleeves. my copy still hasn't arrived in the post but hopefully the product is of high quality. i'm bothered by the fact it doesn't appear to be on 180g (heavyweight) wax, and that the record isn't coloured vinyl (unless you're one of the label's subscribers in which case you get a tasty lavender-marbled wax, or if you were one of the first 150 to order in which case u got white wax). but little things like making sure the inner sleeves are printed on high quality card would be nice. when it was first released i got it on cd but a friend copped the vinyl and it was really well made, but the edition i bought a couple of years later was lacklustre, with poor quality pulpish card for the outer sleeve (which affected the colours, the black not being as vibrant as it should but rather a very dark grey, and really thin paper for the inner sleeves, which are already fraying and turning yellow. still, each edition has its own charm and i can't wait for mine to arrive. but take note for the 25th anniversary edition: we want 180g wax next time! also: the japan-only bonus track "three slims dynamite" should be included.

digable on soultrain in ninety-five

soultrain's bizarre format of getting acts to play live but then playing the recorded version over the top. the host's fearless banality. ladybug's answer to her question signalling the groups days were up. the really pretty spectacular dancing. interesting that jettin apparently was going to be the single, as this was originally aired in march ninety-five, well before blowout's autumn release.

still refuting time

earliest digable promo flyer via high culture

from a recent interview with andrew matson:

You’ve performed in Seattle and New York City with Seattle duo THEESatisfaction, which includes two women who are about 15 years younger than you. Is it challenging making art with younger people? Do you sense a generation gap in that particular collaboration?

Uniform time while useful for things like arranging meetings and paddle boat rentals is proudly of no use to us dynamic electromagnetic kindred beings who love. The generation gap is a public pool on a 100 degree day, I swim.

cee knows moves & some early digable history crumbs

for all digable fans, an update on what doodlebug is up to these days, including some tidbits on the early planets philly connection that i've never read anywhere. when is someone going to write a book on them!? maybe i should...

Digable Planets' Craig Irving Makes His Comeback as Cee-Knowledge

and here's a new clip featuring he:

Selected Readings from the Digable Planets Chronicles: Formation and early years

Reading the City Arts article got me thinking about the early origins of Digable so I checked out this book called Check the Technique: Liner notes for hip-hop junkies by Brian Coleman (Villard, 2007) which is the best document so far of this subject. As well as an unparalelled interview on the subject with Butterfly and Doodlebug, there's a song by song commentary on the debut album. Here's what they had to say about their breakthrough song "Rebirth of Slick (Cool like dat)":
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Doodlebug: The original beat for that was off an old demo by my original group from Philly, Dread Poets Society, called “Skin Treatment.” It had that Art Blakely sample, the horns, the bass. Once I started to become more involved with Digable, then it worked its way in that direction. With Dread Poets, we never went to a studio- it was all homemade demos. Recording in studios costs money and we didn’t have any. I remember that the group didn’t think “Rebirth of Slick” was going to be the hit. I think the label chose it as the first single and we went along with it. Any of the songs would have been fine with us. The single came out in September or October of 1992, and then Giant Step [a popular, jazz-informed dance club in New York, which later became a record label as well] got behind the single and that helped a lot. Maurice Bernstein [of Giant Step] was very helpful. Right before the end of the year, Ruben Rodriguez called us to the label to meet somebody, and that person was Rosie Perez. She chose the groups who would appear on In Living Color and we were like: “Oh, hell yeah!” So after Christmas break, we flew to L.A. and filmed that episode. When it aired [on January 3, 1993], [sales of the single] just went crazy. The album was released early in 1993 [February 9] and we started touring, and it was over after that. That song got to the point were it was just everywhere, on the radio every five seconds.



Butterfly: We actually thought the song “Brown Baby Funk” would be the hit, and that one didn’t even make the album! We were definitely shocked when that song started blowing up. In Living Color is what pushed it over the edge.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'd love to hear the old demo tapes that got Digable signed... hmm maybe one day as their legend grows more and more, the demand will be there. But then I remembered that there was footage of that very performance from 1992 on In Living Colour uploaded on to youtube (thanks to jackyabody0091) and here I present it to you. Also noteworthy for is that a young Jennifer Lopez dancing behind Ladybug at 1:38?? Digable always had great energy and positivity live, but this performance is on another level... they just seem so.. happy, hyped. Ladybug raps some new lines, everyone is just so energised, shame they cut off Doodle's verse; he must've been pissed off at that, but anyway here's the one that set it all off:

WEEKLY TUNE

This is the only footage I've ever seen of Graffiti that also has Jeru on it. He rips it up, and Doodlebug also comes off powerfully here too. Live at the Apollo, summer of 95! They went out in to the field, and rapped to these people...

Digable Planets f/ Jeru the Damaja - Graffiti (Noise) (Live at the Apollo, June 22nd 1995)

Digable Planets Live @ Neumos, Seattle.

Performing Where I'm From (Auhral G Ride mix). Now *that* is MCing. Love C Knowledge's thoughts on music in the interview.

week in music

Dedicated - on the b-side to Dial 7: Axioms of Creamy Spies (Pendulum EMI, 1995)

The memory of a 16-year old me going into a record shop specialising in dance music, in the North Laines Brighton and being sold this record is sacred. Lyrically, a fond farewell.

Weekly Music

This one's for the hardcore Digable nostalgists. Not exactly an under-appreciated song, but it's cool for Ish's verse which I've heard nowhere else plus Ladybug Mecca also switches it up, giving her verse from Black Ego, while they bring is the chorus form Blowing Down to mix it up further.

Live and Uncut

'Digable Planets v.3' play tonight at the Distillery in Calgary, Canada. Appears SP's no-promotion approach is being extended to DP shows too.



And on Friday September 17th, a very special night in Seattle:

Music of the Week: 3

As far as I know this is the only available video of an original (90s) performance of 9th Wonder on the web. The players in the band are ridiculous: major league pros. Also, the clip ends with a rendition of the 9th Wonder Amina/Dania remix which was only available on the rare 9th Wonder: Mad Slicker Remixes single. Both versions sound much more interesting compared to the recorded versions.

Digable Planets - 9th Wonder & 9th Wonder remix (live on the Jon Stewart show, 1994)

London Posse

I got my tickets for the London show on April 22nd a while ago. The day before Ish wrote me saying he put me on the guestlist +3 and asked if I could bring some newspapers in Arabic (!??) No problems of course all the tickets were put to good use and I brought my fiance, her friend, and my bros from London town (breakspears boys). We met the man himself in the venue about an hour before they went on stage. Just like in 2005, the legendary force behind some of the freshest music ever made was as affable, real, and charismatic as can be. We chatted for a while, can't remember it all but I did ask about his interest in learning Arabic. Butterfly responded with some feelings and sentiments hard to quote literally but I got the impression he had been blessed with apprehension of the role of the language as a means of transport. I asked whether his old album Ishmael Since 1999 would ever come out. Not only did he not have any copies of the songs any more but he also didn't know any one who had the album and asked if I knew anyone who did! He then confirmed another 'fear' of mine... a 2nd Cherrywine album had indeed been completed c.2005 and Ish similarly just let that recede into the past once Shabazz Palaces began to emerge. 'I've always been happy to just work on something and then let it go' is how he explained his admittedly healthy artistic attitude. Meanwhile us fans can only dream of unknown aural landscapes off-limits for the time being at least. He also mentioned how the tour van was broken into in Brussels and his laptop was stolen. That was a big shame since he had planned to perform SP songs on this tour. Tendai was supposed to come too but couldn't get his passport in time. We asked how he was enjoying London and he responded by expressing his like of the city: I missed him earlier in the day because he'd been out and managed to cover both the Tate Britain and the Tate Modern museums where he checked the exhibition by one of his favourite artists, Chris Ofili. My lady and I gave him a Yemeni mantle; it elated us to see him enrobed in it in his Norway MTV interview which is on vimeo (not really worth watching though... impressive how consistently, brilliantly mediocre MTV remains).

He dropped some hot crumbs of news about SP though: The next 2 albums are going to be released with a Shabazz Palaces feature-length film. There's more: it's being done in collaboration with Kahlil Joseph. And more: the man himself will be acting in it. You heard it here first.

It was good to see C-Know the Doodlebug too. He was on top form and full of good vibrations which he transmitted to the sold out crowd at the Jazz Cafe. I asked him if we'd ever hear some unreleased Digable b-sides and he responded that EMI had all the tapes so it was not beyond the limits of possibility. Anyway the show later that night was seismic. I think I heard some new rhymes that others won't hear until the new SP stuff drops. The band were decent, too: they are Cee-know's band and are all solid musicians. The drummer was particularly tasteful, and sounded supreme on 9th Wonder. You can hear the bassist and guitarist's side project here. Ish was on another level of intensity altogether, though. The crowd was feeling it and that seemed to take his performance to another plane. Afterwards, amidst the ruins on the dancefloor as a dazed crowd filtered out into the night the bassist opined that Ish is making the best stuff of his career at the moment. I could but nod, thankful to have witnessed thunder and lightning once again.

Mad Shows, Flows, Airplanes Overseas

Digable Planets are now on tour in western Europe!!! Thank you brothers for bringing the love to us here in this increasingly xenophobic corner of the world. I'll be at the London show, and am sure it'll be even better than their phenomenal 2005 appearance, also at the Jazz Cafe. Backed by UGO, who collaborated with Doodlebug back in the day. Dates:

9 Apr 2010, Bohannon, Berlin
10 Apr 2010, Stadtkeller, Linz
11 Apr 2010, Nexx, Brussels
14 Apr 2010, Nouveau Kasino, Paris
15 Apr 2010, Subway, Cologne
16 Apr 2010, Rust, Copenhagen
19 Apr 2010, Paradiso, Amsterdam
22 Apr 2010, Jazz Cafe, London
23 Apr 2010, Crawdaddy, Dublin
24 Apr 2010, MTV Europe, interview, Oslo

Canadian Tour in May: details TBA.

We All Go

Kevin Capp offers a review of Shabazz Palaces hometown debut back in January, bringing out something of the feel of the night. He should note that the headgear in question was a turban, not a 'headscarf'; the latter are worn by women. In the future we can talk about the divine symbolism of the turban. I need a scanner to depict what a Sheikh from Timbuktu explained about that style of turban; it was fascinating.


San Franciscans were treated to a Digable Planets w/Camp Lo show on March 25th. They were backed by Daru Jones's band, and there's a fascinating video clip on You Tube showing the musicians rehearsing the songs. Real musicians. They run through 9th Wonder and Jettin' but best of all offer a sweet take on the beloved and majestic Black Ego. Listen to the bassline as the chords change. Unparalelled. Talking of stupendous musicians, what happened to the Cherrywine players??


The Seattle Times' music writer Andrew Matson has been doing sterling work spreading the word about SP for a good while now via his blog Matson on Music. Last week he appeared on KUOW 94.9FM and discussed We All Go. His interpretation of the song is totally different to mine, and that is part of the magic... like he said, everyone feels an intimate connection to this music, like it was meant just for them. I'm looking forward to discussing the songs in more detail. Matson's view of it being about everyone going to the club together was something that never occurred to me. I always heard it as a reminder of life's transience. Hopefully we can all bring our own insights to the table and draw out some of the treasures within the palaces.

We Only Pursue That Which Destroys

Dividing an artist's career into distinct stages is useful only in so far as it helps us get a grip on what can be a bewilderingly wide spectrum of work. Based on his four artistic personae then, we could view Ish's output as falling under these four phases: Digable Planets, Ishmael, Cherrywine, and Shabazz Palaces. Today's entry covers all of the above.

Firstly, a classic clip (1992?) of Digable performing Rebirth of Slick on In Living Color.

Secondly, a rare and insightful commentary and dialogue by Mtume ya Salaam and Kalamu ya Salaam on Cherrywine and how that particular persona allowed Ish to be as 'political' as ever while distancing himself from the usual political discourse. This is from back in 2005; refreshing to see that someone actually got it! Strictly speaking, Salaam's argument also covers the second phase as his argument draws upon 16th minute, a song from that unreleased 'holy grail', Ishmael Since 1999.

Finally, some Shabazz for you! Andrew Matson was fortunate enough to interview Ish before his debut show, although the end product features less of the interviewee's thoughts than the interviewer's. Telling us of Lazaro's speaking in 'philosophical abstractions about his creative process' and failing to quote him is tantalising to the point of cruelty! Somewhat more satisfyingly, Larry Mizell Jr weighs in with a muscular commentary on Seattle's hip-hop royalty. And a little more here. Finally, here are some photos from the show thanks to Joey Baltimore:









I have to apologise for the lack of updates. I've now realised that I simply won't be able to produce any of my own commentary/essays on Shabazz Palaces until I complete my studies this summer, so until then I hope to continue linking to other good stuff, insha Allah.