It’s 1 March 1994, and at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, the 36th annual Grammy awards are under way. Though Cypress Hill’s Insane in the Membrane and Dr Dre & Snoop Dogg’s Nuthin’ But a “G” Thang are favourites for best rap performance by a duo or group, it’s Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat), the debut single from Brooklyn-based underdogs Digable Planets, that wins.
And the upsets don’t stop there: collecting the award with bandmates Craig “Doodlebug” Irving and Mariana “Ladybug Mecca” Vieira, founder Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler gazes out at the celeb-packed room and kills the mood dead. “We’d like everybody to think about the people right outside this door that’s homeless,” he says. “As you sit in these $900 seats … they out there not eating at all. Also, we’d like to say to the universal Black family that one day we’re gonna recognise our true enemy. We’re gonna stop attacking each other, and maybe then we’ll get some changes going on.”
