The story behind Digable Planets’ ‘The Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)’
Located within the hip-hop space of a lively jazz club, Digable Planets’ Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat) is an undeniable classic of not just the jazz rap genre, but the 1990s music catalogue at large.
Structured around a loop from Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers’ 1979 tune Stretching with reference to Blow Your Head by Fred Wesley and the JBs, the single is pretty infectious and effortlessly cool.
The lyrics confidently assert the group’s belief in not just themselves – “we be to rap what key be to lock” was made to be rapped along to at a party – but rap culture and jazz heritage, too. No wonder it was a near-immediate hit, a remarkable success for Digable Planets’ debut album: the single topped the Hot Rap Singles chart, peaked at number 15 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and won the Grammy Award for ‘Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group’ at the 1994 Grammy Awards.
How it came about is a story perfect for a song as breezily funky and utterly charming as ‘The Rebirth of Slick’. Retelling the story to Spin magazine, the members of Digable Planets – Craig ‘Doodlebug’ Irvine, Mariana ‘Ladybug Mecca’ Vieria, and Ishmael ‘Butterfly’ Butler – explain how it came about.
“In hindsight, you might think, ‘Oh, it’s a big song. Tell us about how it all started.’ But it was more just like instinct and feeling and riding the groove and coming up with another song,” Butterfly explained.
“I liked it, but it wasn’t different than any of the other songs. It was just another one of the 14 songs that we had done. I apologise for not being able to remember the specifics of that day or anything like that, but the cadence and everything and the Cool Like Dat part was just something that developed naturally from the recording of the song.”
Ladybug Mecca gave some insight into the influences of the track. “My influence for my verse for ‘The Rebirth of Slick’ was Q-Tip,” she said. “He was definitely my North Star, trying to live up to his perfection, his delivery, his cadence, like nuance. I didn’t feel intimidation at all. Definitely not with these two brothers. I think because I grew up as a tomboy, I’m very comfortable around men—and women, too—and intimidation was never a factor.”
“It was just about bopping for me,” she added. That doesn’t mean it was all smooth riding. When Mecca detailed she was “sitting in the chair of a makeup artist” in the creation of the album art, who “plucked most of my eyebrows out without asking me and pencilled them in”, that she “cried even.”
“That was too many blunts ago,” Doodlebug laughed. “I do remember being very proud, and a lot of my friends from Philly came up. I was hanging out behind the scenes. I felt proud and accomplished because all of us had that dream. We all sat around watching Rap City and to have a professional video being done and being a part of something at that time to me felt so big. It was so otherworldly, and I was just proud that my friends were there and they saw us doing our thing, doing everything that we dreamed of trying to do.”
The trio then discussed how one of them went viral. “Doodlebug went viral, too, with his little dance,” Butterfly said. “Yo, that shit was fly, bro.”