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Grammy-winning hip-hop trio Digable Planets headlines the Jazz & Blossoms Park Jam this Sunday in D.C.
WTOP caught up with co-founder Craig “Doodlebug” Irving ahead of the outdoor concert in Franklin Park.
“We’re gonna rock out, do some improvisational stuff because the use of the band allows us the freedom of space to do some other things,” Irving told WTOP. “We take some of our songs that you’re familiar with and stretch them out, take them to different universes and go other places with them, so it’s gonna be a crazy experience. If you’re into the Digable Planets sound and you’re into experimental jazz, funk, soul, hip-hop, you’ll enjoy yourself.”
Before Digable Planets, Irving was a member of the Philly rap group Dread Poets Society before meeting Ishmael Butler, who grew up in Seattle, and Mariana Vieira, who hails from Silver Spring, Maryland.
“I was going to Howard University in the mid 80s and while I was there on the hip-hop scene, I met her, she was part of a hip-hop dance crew,” Irving said. “During that time also, I’m in college, so whenever there’s a hot college party up and down the East Coast, I was there. … A lot of these places I would see Ishmael Butler, ‘Butterfly,’ going to college on the East Coast at UMass. His grandmother lived in Philly around the corner from my grandmother.”
When Digable Planets formed in Philadelphia in 1987, Irving changed his rap alias from Cee Knowledge to the new nickname Doodlebug, while Butler adopted the moniker Butterfly and Vieira became Ladybug Mecca.
“[Butler] started explaining to us the concept of the group, the insect theory, it’s all for one, one for all within the insect community, it’s not about ego, everything is done for the good of the hive,” Irving said. “I was like, ‘Damn, an insect? I don’t know. What insect would I be?’ Eventually, I’m chilling with friends watching kung fu flicks and blaxploitation movies and came across ‘Cleopatra Jones’ … the head of this gang was named Doodlebug.”
In 1993, Digable Planets released a successful first album “Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space).”
“Every person is a planet, we control our own world,” Irving said. “In the jazz world, to ‘dig’ was part of the vernacular of that era, so we wanted to combine all the things, our philosophy of life, of everybody being their own person, self-sufficient, an essential being that controls their own life and makes their own decisions. … When he brought it to me I was like, ‘Digable Planets? That’s wild,’ and when I sat and let it absorb, I thought, ‘That’s dope.’”
The album’s smash single “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” smoothly sampled “Stretching” by Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, topping the rap charts and crossing over to reach No. 15 on the Billboard singles chart. The song won the Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Group, beating Arrested Development’s “Revolution,” Cypress Hill’s “Insane in the Brain,” Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg’s “Nuthin’ But a G Thang” and Naughty By Nature’s “Hip Hop Hooray.”
“I can still feel that feeling I got when my manager sat in his office and named all of the nominees,” Irving said. “I was like, ‘Yo, we have no chance of winning this!’ I can’t believe that we’re even named in the same breath as these incredible people. I’m fans of all of them! It was just a moment in time, it caught some kind of fire in the industry. … When they called our name that night, I went blank like, ‘What?’ I swore Snoop and Dre were gonna win that.”
Their second album “Blowout Comb” (1994) was less successful, but he remains proud of it.
“We were just doing what we wanted to do,” Irving said. “As an artist, it’s not about what the fans want, it’s what you do and then you invite the fans into your world: ‘Here, this is me, this is who I am at this moment in time, if you like it, jump on and roll with us.’ … ‘Blowout Comb’ was our chance to show who we were and how we really thought in terms of society and politics. … It’s critically acclaimed, it just didn’t do as well in record sales.”
The group sadly broke up in 1995 before reuniting in 2005 to continue touring to this day.
“You have a lot of people in your ear telling you how great you are and you don’t need this person,” Irving said. “Something fractured the relationship that we had in the beginning and opened the door to a lot of evils and insecurities that created walls around each of us. … Ten years later, we got back together. … In a world where you can get forgotten real quick, I can’t believe that people still remember who we are and want to hear what we do.”
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Hear our full conversation on the podcast below:
