The new single, “Bandits” from Cee Knowledge & The Cosmic Funk Orchestra, a live instrument hip-hop band lead by ‘Cee Know the Doodlebug’ of the Grammy award winning jazz-influenced rap group Digable Planets. CFO’s new full length album, To Life, Love, & Loot is set to officially release in the Summer of 2014.

Cee Knowledge aka Doodlebug of the Grammy award winning Digable Planets crewpresents “The Expendables” MIXTAPE feat the CFO Allstars. The mixtape features special guest appearances by Lord Jamar of Brand Nubian, Shabazz Palaces, Booty Brown of the Pharcyde, General Steele of Smif n Wessun, Tony award winning Black Ice of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, Kin4Life, J-Dash, Third Degree, Mecca Star, Big Wayne aka Cash I$ and more.

Official Music Video for the track “Shine (u can’t stop the)” off of Doodlebug Feat DOR’s album “Futuristic Sci-Fi” released on Soulspazm/Fat Beats.

“Fight For Ya Right” by Ceeknowledge aka Doodlebug from the Grammy Award winning trio, Digable Planets, produced by Xing N Fox. This song was actually recorded in the spring of 2011, months before the #OWS movement started. However the message and the breakbeat fit perfectly with the emerging movement. On October 17th, exactly one month into occupy wall street, Doodlebug and his family met up with Xing N Fox, along with filmmaker Dwayne “Deerock” Forest, to experience the energy of the protestors in Zuccotti Park. This is the result.
]]> http://www.hiphopsite.com/2011/12/07/digable-planets-doodlebug-fight-for-ya-right-video/feed/ 3 http://www.hiphopsite.com/2011/09/13/doodlebug-digable-planets-do-what-u-do-feat-don-will-moka-only/ http://www.hiphopsite.com/2011/09/13/doodlebug-digable-planets-do-what-u-do-feat-don-will-moka-only/#comments Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:11:37 +0000 http://www.hiphopsite.com/?p=38236 [cont.]]]>

Doodlebug of the legendary 90’s Hip Hop group Digable Planets will release an album project entitled Doodlebug Feat DOR – “Futuristic Sci-Fi” on September 27th  via Soulspazm/Fatbeats Records. “Futuristic Sci-Fi” is a collaboration with his tour DJ and producer DJ Alex J. of DOR. The album will be a double disc set  and features guest appearances from Blame One, Don Will (Tanya Morgan), Moka Only, The Tones, LMNO of the Visionaries, Kai Chi of CFO & many others (the 2nd disc is a Free Digable Planets Mixtape). This album represents Doodlebug aka Cee Know’s 1st major project away from his usual Digable Planet family and has created quite a buzz on the blogosphere with the album leak “Do What u Do” feat Moka Only and Don Will (Tanya Morgan).

LISTEN: Doodlebug (Digable Planets) – “Do What U Do” (feat. Don Will + Moka Only)

Filmmaker Jake Lyon is doing on a documentary called: The Rise and Fall and Eventual Return of The Insects from Sector Six about the trio that made it popular to just relax and be “Cool Like That”. Digable Planets apparently will include a new female emcee by the name Lady Madarocka.

Simply said, on Reachin’ Digable was on some other shit, re-envisioning their Brooklyn home through insect metaphors that, looking back, still don’t make much sense but it still sounded good.  In fact, it all sounded good and perhaps one of Digable’s great achievements is that people loved their songs without actually understanding any of them (don’t believe me?  Try to recall the lines to any song off this album that’s not part of a chorus).  The only exception might be “La Femme Fetal”, an unexpected polemic on pro-choice politics.

But if they lacked substance (and DP was hardly alone here), they came with ’nuff style to compensate, especially in the refreshing chemistry between Butter, Doodle and Lady (a formula so successful that, as rumor has it, it got the Fugees signed since they held the same two-guys-and-a-girl configuration). Mostly though, people jocked the sound of Reachin’ and it’s a testament to Butterfly’s production that the album’s music still holds up today, long after the group dissolved.  Butter dug deep into soul and jazz catalogs from the 1960s and ’70s, layering and sequencing icy cool horn licks over walking bass lines and subdued drum breaks. It’s hard to find a bad track on here but standouts include “Swoon Units” with its sparkling sound, the midnight groove of “Pacifics”, and the stomping thump of “Time & Space (a new refutation of).” 

What a difference a year makes.  The Digable Planets’ transformation from insects to militants likely caught many off guard, not the least of which was their crossover audience who enjoyed Reachin’ as a latter day Birth of Cool for the hip-hop era. But Blowout Comb, with its Black Power iconography, darker moodscapes and socially incisive lyricism was a far change of pace from that easy going, happy-go-lucky charm.

The result was a commercial disappointment and no doubt helped to speed the group’s dissolution but the sad irony is that this was, by all measures, a vastly superior album over its predecessor. For starters, Butterfly and Mecca (Doodlebug shows up as a cameo more than a regular player) have tightened up their rhyme scheme considerably from the last album – riding rhythms with their flow like pros.  Peep this one from Mecca on “Dig It”: “Meet me at the corner Murder and Adolpha/I bless you with some joints, the mental hollow points.”

Even more enticing is the improved music – this time, instead of strictly sampling, Butterfly and crew bring in live musicians and interpolate their own arrangements of various jazz riffs.  The resulting songs are as dense and rich as a chocolate truffle – still jazzy but packing more punch and layers of sound. Standouts include the sublime, melancholy “The Art of Easing”, the hard funk snap of “Blowing Down” and the lushly expansive feel of “For Corners”. 

Alas, the Digable’s era was short-lived as the jazzy sway of the New School would soon come to be replaced by the hard-knock tales of hip-hop’s neo-thugs, pimps and hustlers. Still, for about one shining year, Digable had us all speaking in insect dialects and funky Afrolistics. It was good to be there.

Simply said, on Reachin’ Digable was on some other shit, re-envisioning their Brooklyn home through insect metaphors that, looking back, still don’t make much sense but it still sounded good.  In fact, it all sounded good and perhaps one of Digable’s great achievements is that people loved their songs without actually understanding any of them (don’t believe me?  Try to recall the lines to any song off this album that’s not part of a chorus).  The only exception might be “La Femme Fetal”, an unexpected polemic on pro-choice politics.

But if they lacked substance (and DP was hardly alone here), they came with ’nuff style to compensate, especially in the refreshing chemistry between Butter, Doodle and Lady (a formula so successful that, as rumor has it, it got the Fugees signed since they held the same two-guys-and-a-girl configuration). Mostly though, people jocked the sound of Reachin’ and it’s a testament to Butterfly’s production that the album’s music still holds up today, long after the group dissolved.  Butter dug deep into soul and jazz catalogs from the 1960s and ’70s, layering and sequencing icy cool horn licks over walking bass lines and subdued drum breaks. It’s hard to find a bad track on here but standouts include “Swoon Units” with its sparkling sound, the midnight groove of “Pacifics”, and the stomping thump of “Time & Space (a new refutation of).” 

What a difference a year makes.  The Digable Planets’ transformation from insects to militants likely caught many off guard, not the least of which was their crossover audience who enjoyed Reachin’ as a latter day Birth of Cool for the hip-hop era. But Blowout Comb, with its Black Power iconography, darker moodscapes and socially incisive lyricism was a far change of pace from that easy going, happy-go-lucky charm.

The result was a commercial disappointment and no doubt helped to speed the group’s dissolution but the sad irony is that this was, by all measures, a vastly superior album over its predecessor. For starters, Butterfly and Mecca (Doodlebug shows up as a cameo more than a regular player) have tightened up their rhyme scheme considerably from the last album – riding rhythms with their flow like pros.  Peep this one from Mecca on “Dig It”: “Meet me at the corner Murder and Adolpha/I bless you with some joints, the mental hollow points.”

Even more enticing is the improved music – this time, instead of strictly sampling, Butterfly and crew bring in live musicians and interpolate their own arrangements of various jazz riffs.  The resulting songs are as dense and rich as a chocolate truffle – still jazzy but packing more punch and layers of sound. Standouts include the sublime, melancholy “The Art of Easing”, the hard funk snap of “Blowing Down” and the lushly expansive feel of “For Corners”. 

Alas, the Digable’s era was short-lived as the jazzy sway of the New School would soon come to be replaced by the hard-knock tales of hip-hop’s neo-thugs, pimps and hustlers. Still, for about one shining year, Digable had us all speaking in insect dialects and funky Afrolistics. It was good to be there.