BLOWOUT COMB
Artist: Digable Planets
Release Date: October 18th, 1994
Label: Pendulum
Styles: Jazz-rap, alternative rap, urban
Let me start by saying that if you have even heard more than one track off this album, I'm impressed. This is one of, if not the, most under the radar hip-hop albums to ever be released.
And when I say under the radar, I'm not talking about something that just slipped through the crevices.
No, this album may has well have been released on a different planet, because it didn't receive anywhere near the attention it should have when it hit the stores in 1994. Put this into perspective: Digable Planet's debut album, Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space), made it to the #15 spot on the Billboard 200. It's lead single, "Rebirth of Slick (It's Cool Like Dat)", also peaked at #15 on the Billboard Hot 100. Blowout Comb, Digable Planet's second (and last) album, wasn't able to even crack the top 200 in albums and didn't have one single chart. Commercially, Blowout Comb was a failure. But do poor sales mean an album low in quality as well?
Blowout Comb answers that question with a definitive no. Not only is Blowout Comb a great effort from Digable Planets, but it is so good, that it surpasses Reachin' by leaps and bounds. Blowout Comb begins with the track, "The May 4th Movement", which features a sample from "When I Die" by Motherlode. The song sets the tone for the album with a very laid back, jazzy feel. You'll be surprised however, how well Doodlebug, Lady Bug, and Butterfly are able to blend their delivery with the sample. This track may not have an actual message that you can take out of it, but it's a great one still because of how smooth the Digable Planet's crew sound on it. Butterfly, Doodlebug, and Ladybug are just getting started after "The May 4th Movement" as their next track is just as laid back and brilliant as the first.
"Black Ego" begins with a conversation between Butterfly and a police officer, where he discusses how he never has any rights. Lady Bug then takes over and creates metaphors and similes to what is referred to as "black ethic". Doodlebug's and Butterfly's verses are equally as strong as Lady Bug's, and even though the song gets tedious (it clocks in at 7:02), it has the amazing trait that keeps you hooked until the final sample plays out.
This is a common theme through Blowout Comb. Are the words and messages cryptic and hard to understand? To most listeners, they are. However, the rhymes that Doodlebug, Lady Bug, and Butterfly drop are genius. The album literally plays like one huge song because it transitions so seemlessly from one track to the next. "Dog It", the third track, features a social commentary from Lady Bug and Butterfly, combined with a great combination of bells and jazz. "Jettin'" contains one of the best samples I've ever heard used on any hip-hop cut, ripping from Bob James and Lee Dorsey. It also has a very catchy chorus and is a song you will be returning to quite often as you listen to the album.
"Borough Check (ft. Guru)" marks the midway point of the album and is one of the best songs on the whole album. Not only are Digable Planets strong with their verses, but the addition of Guru solidifies the song from being great, to classic. What makes this such a good song lyrically? It's a description of life in Brooklyn in a creative, but vivid way. Here's a verse from Doodlebug that describes the area and types of people:
and we troopin throught the fulton forkways
the eastern parkways
i’m broader than broadway, nothing more than morays
i sways, why cause i’m a brooklyn stroller
no ones cooler, pigs on my boulder
so i switch my pitch as i stretch down atlantic
strictly slickly with my fork mean tactic
in fact it’s really on the daily
kids with guns and herbs look for herbs
now i think you feel me
i freaks it, cause yo like my pimp stroll is cool
when i creeps up the sweet and jeeps blast
tools rule the area, yo these fool don’t play
i got the comrades of love, so the g stays
brooklyn side with the crooklyn slide
Most albums start to lose momentum after songs like this, but Blowout Comb stays on course. After an interlude, "Dial 7 (Axion of Creamy Spies ft. Sarah Anne Webb)" is a single off the album and that, along with the other single "9th Wonder (Blackitolism ft. Jazzy Joyce)", is the closest to mainstream Digable Planets get. It features another unique sample from Silkworm and, although not as lyrically strong as previous tracks, it holds its own with a strong performance from Butterfly.
"Graffiti" sounds like something straight from what you would hear in a coffee shop. The beat may turn off some, but if you appreciate mic skills more than beats, then you're in good shape. "Blowing Down" returns the more accessible beats with something you might expect to hear in a dream, literally. It's a bizarre and almost hippie type of beat, one that Digable Planets are somehow able to turn into a strong track. You even are hearing clarinet samples here; how many songs will you hear that on?
"9th Wonder" is the first single that was released on Blowout Comb, which follows "Blowing Down". Here is another beat that may turn casual hip-hop listeners off, but it's another song that is dominated by strong lyrics. Just look at this verse by Butterfly:
Myrtle Ave A-train got the pic in my hair
and what 16 joints later still lounge
fresh, from flatbush in my baggy booster gets
style is tight ees bust the cami' fatigues
50,000 leagues of black, so what's up
can we avenue slide player style ghetto walk
to the east and wild Crooklyn, New York
creamy kid yo smith and wesson win a blessing
the angular slang blow spots..bang..eleven
hangin' like bats.cos..the 12 inch wax.
say scorpio
and my hair say 'fro
and my blood say bro
my clics say "eh, yo!"
make sparks from the barrel me tal pistol
to the depths I dive seems lunar like aqua
the cool blast mega we black we wild flowers
"Scott La Rock had emm all," I gots the ball
and roll a little panthers
through these project halls
the 3-color flag can't hold my baggys sag
7 1 8 to omega
black motion is ocean style
slick in my ways since days of the classic
now glamour boys want to be triple phatted
If Blowout Comb hasn't impressed you by this point, it's final track "For Corners", will. This is, in my opinion, Digable Planet's most polished song they have ever released. For one, the beat is one of the smoothest I've ever heard. It might be the best jazz sample that's been incorporated into a hip-hop song, ever. Not only is the beat mesmerizing, but the play of words by Butterfly, Doodlebug, and Lady Bug is very impressive. Each MC jumps on the mic for five or six lines, then passes it to the next. The song goes for nearly five minutes like this until it lets the chorus and insane samples of "Island Letter" by Shuggie Otis, "It's a New Day" by Skull Snaps, and "Ebony Blaze" by Roy Ayers play out.
This album, simply put, is one of the most creative, jazzy, lyrically dense, and intelligent albums that you will ever have the pleasure of listening to in hip-hop. Unfortunately for the Digable Planet's, their timing of the release of Blowout Comb came at a competitive time. Remember, 1994 was also the year that Notorious B.I.G. released Ready to Die, Nas with Illmatic, and Common's Ressurection, and OutKast's Southernplayalisticadillacmusik. That's four of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time, so Blowout Comb became buried under hip-hop's greatness.
Regardless of how commercially unsuccessful Blowout Comb was, it is maintained as a masterpiece of the genre. I have listened to a lot of hip-hop, but this album is one that sticks out as a work of art. Is it an album you'll be bumping at house parties or using to try impress the ladies? Of course not. But if you're looking for something musical (yes I refer to it as musical, not just hip-hop because it's that good) that's real, genuine, jazzy, and chill to listen to, Blowout Comb may just blow your mind.
Track List (* indicates "Worth a Listen")
1. The May 4th Movement
2. Black Ego*
3. Dog It
4. Jettin'*
5. Borough Check (ft. Guru)*
6. Highing Fly
7. Dial 7 (Axion of Creamy Spies, ft. Sarah Anne Webb)
8. The Art of Easing
9. K.B.'s Alley (Mood Dudes Groove)
10. Graffiti (ft. Jeru the Damaja)
11. Blowing Down
12. 9th Wonder (Blackitolism, ft. Jazzy Joyce)
13. For Corners*
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