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‘They felt they couldn’t market us to white people’: 90s hip-hop iconoclasts Digable Planets return


As they mark the 30th anniversary of album Blowout Comb, the Grammy-winning trio revisit their egalitarian ethos, anti-fascist lyrics and Pink Floyd influences

Though Cypress Hill’s Insane in the Membrane and Dr Dre & Snoop Dogg’s Nuthin’ But a “G” Thang are favourites for best rap performance by a duo or group, it’s Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat), the debut single from Brooklyn-based underdogs Digable Planets, that wins. And the upsets don’t stop there: collecting the award with bandmates Craig “Doodlebug” Irving and Mariana “Ladybug Mecca” Vieira, founder Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler gazes out at the celeb-packed room and kills the mood dead. Photograph: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty ImagesBut for all this playfulness, the album was grounded, too – the abortion-themed La Femme Fetal warned that the oft-threatened repeal of Roe v Wade would result in the deaths of young women, and recommended that listeners “fight against the fascists”.

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Digable Planets