I Never Watch American Idol. I Promise. Casey Dorrell

Tonight, on American Idol*, there was a Ford advertisement. No, not shocking in itself, but the song the large puppets (one for each idol) sang as they danced around their hot ride was . . . Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat), a Digable Planets song. Digable Planets was a group which I was going to describe as Skip-hop, only a search on google (in order to insure my perceived definition of skip-hop was correct**) caused some confusion. It did confirm that skip-hop was "hip" and "innovative." However, I also found that it has made Michael and Ellen's life much easier. This seemed reasonable enough - I can see good music making one's life a little bit easier, but when I discovered that the ease was due to skip-hop's increased diaper capacity and stroller attachment handles I thought, perhaps, something was amiss. Apparently the entire genre of skip-hop has sold out to a "Parent Products Company". Fitting, given the subject matter of this post. Mr. Lochlan Dorrell, Skip-Hop Enthusiast Anyhow, Digable Planets were pretty big briefly in the early 90's with the '93 album, Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space). A song of theirs was even on the timeless classic, Coneheads. They mixed hip-hop with laid back jazz, creating a dreamy rap sound completely unlike most mainstream rap of the time. Reachin' was a critical/commercial success and Rebirth of Slick made the top 20. Their follow up CD, Blowout Comb, had far less samples and more outwardly political content. It bombed. They split up for "creative differences". Fast forward*** a decade and the group that once worried about it's street credibility, ultimately breaking up over it, has their song sung by the singers of American Idol. As puppets. In a Ford advertisement. Update: Apparently Digable Planets are poised to return. No information as far as release date or stage of production so far. * Neither Casey nor Lochlan advocate watching American Idol ** Casey's effort to fact-check is not a reflection of Mocking Music official policy. We apologize for the shift away from wild speculation, and will do our best to insure future posts are at least 50% more inaccurate and/or ambiguous. *** Mocking Music does, however, encourage the use of cliches in writing, whenever and wherever possible. We have a knack for it.