Funk cannot be measured while the pleasure grows up Digable Planets – Jimmi Diggin' Cats
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What is this?
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“Across the tracks” is a reference to the saying “from the other side of the tracks”, meaning from a bad or poor part of town. Digable Planets' music unifies people from different backgrounds, causing those from both sides of the tracks to get together.
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Digable Planets hangs around their neighborhood showing off their beautiful “naps”, aka “nappy”, or natural/unaltered hair.
Descriptions of hair can be found in all off Digable’s music (just take the title of their second album Blow Out Comb) – often serving as a symbol of Afrocentrism.
Joey’s bringin' it back.
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“Crushed velvet hats” is a reference to Jimmi Hendrix’s distinctive hats that were purple, wide-rimmed, and usually made out of a fabric like crushed velvet.
“Air soul kicks” could be a reference to the soles of Air Jordans. With a 70s-era Hendrix hat and 90’s-era Jordans, Butterfly would be stuntin'. But the alternate spelling (“soul” instead of “sole”) suggests a move away from the typical brand name flex. Perhaps Digable Planets has more soul than to rock the popular brand names of their generation.
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By “90-tops” he means classic 90’s hairstyles. Twists and plaits were popular braided hairstyles of that decade.
Word
And I was thinking
If the '60s and '70s were now
Isaac Hayes would have his own 900 number Digable Planets – Jimmi Diggin' Cats
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Everyone’s “going retro”, aka looking back to decades like the 60’s and 70’s for style and musical inspiration. Butterfly flips the scenario, imagining what life would be like for major artists of the 60’s and 70’s were they experiencing the peaks of their careers in Digable Planet’s generation (the 90’s).
Butterfly gives the example of Isaac Hayes, an American songwriter, musician, singer, and actor (fun fact – for years, he was the voice of Chef on South Park!). If he did what he was doing in the 60’s/70’s in the 90’s, maybe he would have his own 900 phone line – a generation specific technology that characterized the 90’s! Isaac Hayes is well-known for his distinctive, deep voice, a quality that would do a 900 phone line operator quite well.
This line is also sarcastic – a typical 900 phone line operator would run something like a sex line, using a sultry and inviting voice urging people to call the number. For Isaac Hayes – an Academy Award winning musician and songwriter – to be doing that occupation would be a major step down for him. The 90’s perhaps would not appreciate Hayes' talent like the 70’s did.
“Everyone’s going retro” could also include the Digable Planets themselves, for this song samples Kool & The Gang’s 1974 song, ‘Summer Madness’.
Until the police started sneaking 'round here Yung Lean – Oreomilkshake
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Yung Lean loves weed, but was recently busted by the police, so he’s on probation and has to go easy on the dro. As he said in a recent interview with Vice when asked if he was into drugs, “This is just very awkward. We’re on probation. We got caught. Yung Sherman got busted for doing graffiti. I got busted for smoking weed.”
Perhaps he will overcompensate with Arizona.
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A reference to the Lil B’s song “Charlie Sheen”.
Yung Lean has said the reason why he calls his crew Sad Boys is “‘cause Squadda Bambino isn’t here, and neither is Lil B. If Squadda and Lil B were here, we’d be happy.”
Also, these hoes think that he’s Charlie Sheen because of how much coke he snorts.
The photo was shot outside a photoshoot, as Lean shared in a 2018 episode of Pitchfork’s Over/Under:
We met when I was doing the photoshoot for Calvin Klein and he was like standing outside. I asked him for a cigarette, he gave me a cigarette, and then we smoked, and then he’s like, “Oh, so do you wanna boost a little at work?”. He brings out this little bottle and holds it kinda like some small leprechaun. I was, “No, I don’t want to booze right now, I just woke up.” He said, “Alright.” And then I was like, “Fuck, I just disappointed Charlie Sheen, this is not good,” so I was like, “Wait, Charlie, you and me, we should go on a bender soon.” He was like, “Yeah, that’s my boy, that’s my boy.” Then he walks inside and his manager comes out, she’s like, “ Oh hi, Yung Lean, how are you?”, “I’m good, so what’s Charlie doing here?”, “Probably his worst film yet, it’s called 911 and he’s in an elevator the whole time.”
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Yung Lean loves making references to ‘classic’ American things, such as the classic movie Ghostbusters.
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A description that could have been plucked from Woodstock.
This and the following line are borrowed from James Brown’s “Get on the Good Foot”
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Get on the Good Foot is the James Brown song. The two lines are borrowed verbatim.
This is also a reference to a song by James Brown. Thus bringing it back to what the great artists of the 60s would have thought of digable planets.