Digable Planets released the song “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” with their first album, Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space). It was released on February 9, 1993.

The song is one of the earliest commercially successful hip-hop songs to make the crossover from rap music charts to the top 40.

Song Facts: 

• Band members are Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler, Mariana “Ladybug Mecca” Vieira, and Craig “Doodlebug” Irving.
• The band met in Philadelphia in the late eighties, at a time when rap started gaining national notoriety. During this time, rap music had started splitting off into subgenres, forming hip-hop and gangsta rap. 
• “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” peaked at #15 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart.
• The song won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group in 1994.
• Their debut album is heavily influenced by classical jazz music because jazz albums were the only albums their parents said the band could use for sampling. The result was a brand-new type of jazz fusion rap.
• Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space) was certified gold.
• Their second album, Blow Out Comb, was not successful. Critics noted the album’s dark themes and lack of hooks.
• The same year, Digable Planets appeared on RHO’s (Red Hot Organization) compilation album, Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool. The album was used to raise awareness and money for AIDS and was described as the “album of the year” by Time magazine.
• The trio split up in 1997 because they couldn’t agree artistically, but regrouped in 2005.
• Digable Planets held a reunion tour in 2016 and released a live album, Digable Planets Live, the following summer in 2017. 

Lyrics 

We like the breeze flow straight out of our lids

Them they got moved by these hard rock Brooklyn kids

Us flow a rush when the DJ’s boomin’ classics

You dig the crew on the fattest hip hop records

He touch the kinks and sinks into the sounds

She frequents the fatter joints called undergrounds

Our funk zooms like you hit the Mary Jane

They flock to booms man, boogie had to change

Who freaks the clips with mad amount percussion

Where kinky hair goes to unthought-of dimensions

Why’s it so fly ’cause hip-hop kept some drama

When Butterfly rocked the light blue-suede Pumas

What by the cut we push it off the corner

How was the buzz entire hip-hop era?

Was fresh in fact since they started sayin’ outie

‘Cause funks made fat from right beneath my hoodie

The puba of the styles like miles and shit

Like sixties funky worms with waves and perms

Just sendin’ junky rhythms right down ya block

We be to rap what key be to lock

But I’m cool like dat, I’m cool like dat

I’m cool like dat, I’m cool like dat

I’m cool like dat, I’m cool like dat

I’m cool like dat, I’m cool

We be the chocolates taps on my raps

She innovates at the sweeta cat naps

He at the funk club with the vibrate

Them, they be crazy down with the five plate

It can kick a plan then a crowd burst

Me, I be diggin’ it with a bump verse

Us, we be freakin ’til dawn blinks an eye

He gives the strangest smile so I say hi (wassup)

Who understood, yeah, understood the plans?

Him heard a beat and put it to his hands

What I just flip let borders get loose

How to consume or they’ll be just like juice

If it’s the shit we’ll lift it off the plastic

The babes’ll go spastic, hip-hop gains a classic

Pimp playin’ shock, it don’t matter, I’m fatter

Ax Butta how I zone (man Cleopatra Jones)

And I’m chill like dat, I’m chill like dat

I’m chill like dat, I’m chill like dat

I’m chill like dat, I’m chill like dat

I’m chill like dat, I’m chill

Blink, blink, blink, blink, blink, blink, blink

Think, think, think, think, think, think, think

We get ya free ’cause the clips be fat boss

Them, they’re the jams and commence to goin off

She sweats the beat and ask me ’cause she puffed it

Me, I got crew kids, seven and a crescent

Us ’cause a buzz when the nickel bags are dealt

Him, that’s my man with the asteroid belt

They catch a fizz from the Mr. Doodle-big

He rocks a tee from the Crooklyn non-pigs

The rebirth of slick like my gangsta stroll

The lyrics just like you, come and stack some roles

You used to find a bug in a box with fade

Now he boogies up your stage, plaits twist or braids

And I’m peace like dat, I’m peace like dat

I’m peace like dat, I’m peace like dat

I’m peace like dat, I’m peace like dat

I’m peace like dat, I’m peace (check it out, man)

And I groove like dat, I’m smooth like dat

I jive like dat, I roll like dat

Yeah, I’m thick like dat, I stack like dat

I’m down like dat, I’m black like dat

Well yo, I funk like dat, I’m fat like dat

I’m in like dat ’cause I swing like dat

We jazz like dat, we freak like dat

We zoom like dat

We out