from the LP Reachin’, Pendulum Records, 1993Damn, this shit was so phat when it dropped, right at the tail-end of hip-hop’s golden era when things were toughening up quickly; that’s what made the Digable’s focus on jazz-funk samples so pleasantly surprising, and not a trace of thug-shade in the lyrics. All three MCs spit fresh, psychedelic-laced rhymes, but it was Butterfly who really steals the show, as he also produced the whole album & the beats by himself, fashioning a samples-heavy stew that continues to reveal secrets all these years later. This song is based around the oft-sampled loop from Kool & the Gang’s “Summer Madness”, but it’s thrown together in such a fresh way that all other attempts just pale in comparison---sorry Will Smith.
