Biography
US psychedelic jazz rappers who, along with Gang Starr, were hailed as the instigators of the genre. Contextually they were more accurately the legacy of De La Soul / P.M. Dawn’s Daisy-age rap, as can be detected from their colourful pseudonyms; Doodle Bug (Craig Irving, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA), Butterfly (b. Ishmael Butler, Brooklyn, New York, USA) and Ladybug (b. Mary Ann Vierra, Silver Springs, Maryland, USA). This conveyed their kooky, spaced-out philosophy, their names derived from an admiration for the community structures of ants and insects. Musically it was a delicious combination of wordplay and dreamy jazz backing utilising samples from artists as diverse as Art Blakey and Curtis Mayfield. The crew admitted that ‘We use a lot of the colloquialisms that came out of jazz’. However, there was an underlying political bent, as expressed on debut album tracks such as ‘La Femme Fetal’, an attack on the Pro-Life lobby who...
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