Digable Planets hit it big in 1993 with "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)," which blended a heavy jazz bass line, a light hiphop beat, and a horn loop sampled from Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers' "Stretchin'." The single, which was a radio and MTV hit, rocketed the album, Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space), to the top of the business of selling records in America. Accordingly, the Grammy institution gave the handsome trio—Ladybug, Doodlebug, and Butterfly—an award for their unexpected commercial success. Reachin', however, was not an amazing record, and nor at the time of its release was it groundbreaking—that honor went to A Tribe Called Quest's The Low End Theory (1991), which not only had a track called "Jazz (We've Got)," but "Verses from the Abstract" featured a real jazz giant, Ron Carter, effortlessly playing bass to the beat of the backpack generation.

Reachin' actually sounded rushed, with ideas that, though strong, were not settled or complete. In fact, Reachin' was more about mood than music, more about form than content. With Reachin', the hipster entered the stage of hiphop, which at the time was being overtaken by a new class of gangsters—post-NWA, post-L.A. riot gangsters—who "didn't give a fuck" and who would by the end of the decade dominate the billion-dollar market. De La Soul gave us hiphop hippies; Public Enemy revised the Black Panther, and gave us "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos"; Digable Planets gave us something whose hippie part and revolutionary part were glued together by a sensibility closely related to that of the European dandy. This was the main contribution of Reachin': a new voice that was to become the brohemian of the underground period (1997 to present).

In 1994, Digable Planets did something that was wholly unexpected. They produced one of the greatest hiphop records of all time, Blowout Comb. In this work, what was mood and atmosphere in Reachin' solidified into something that had depth, fullness, great intelligence, sensitivity, warmth, anger. The planet for Reachin' was Venus; the planet for Blowout was Earth. The three rappers took their heads out of the clouds, got down to the "ghetto level," and gave us a vision of daily life in a society that economically and physically oppressed its urban black poor. And yet, this work's art was not burdened by its heavy message. The art, in fact, benefited, as it had a clear direction, function, and structure. The music transmitted the language of mass revolution to the most personal parts of the soul. I have never stopped listening to this record.

Blowout was a financial flop. But that doesn't matter. No one will remember P. M. Dawn's financially successful Of the Heart, of the Soul and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience [Beg to differ. —ed.]. Hiphop history can expel it out of its memory with no loss or impact to its substance. The same can't be said about Blowout Comb. It is a crucial record that links what began in the mainstream (A Tribe Called Quest, Pharcyde, Guru, Pete Rock) with what ended up in the underground (the Coup, Zion I, Dead Prez, Blue Scholars, Common Market). In fact, it can be argued that Blowout Comb had a big impact on the Northwest's post–Sir Mix-A-Lot indie-hiphop aesthetic. Listen to Jasiri Media Group's compilation Word Sound Power or K Records' collection Classic Elements (both from 1998), and you will hear the same moody jazz, cool anger, and radical black politics that define Blowout Comb.

Butterfly (Ishmael Butler), Ladybug (Mary Ann Vieira), and Doodlebug (Craig Irving) brought hiphop closer to communism than any other rap crew (even Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy). Not one of the three MCs on the recording stands out; none is faster, louder, madder than his or her comrades. Even the guest appearance by the distinctive rapper Jeru the Damaja is leveled to the pace, register, and style of the rest. Jeru dissolves his individuality into the whole. This is unheard of in the rap world; MCs are not in the business of parting with their profitable personalities. Just think of the Wu-Tang Clan, which is a gallery of personalities. Blowout Comb marches in the opposite direction of the dominant practices in hiphop. The music, the rappers, even the samples and live musicians, are collectivized by the liberation movement of the "universal original creamy."

charles@thestranger.com