Digital Underground - Sex Packets 2xLP - Blue Vinyl

Tommy Boy (2021, Reissue)

Every Wednesday, in honor of Ed Lover Dance Day from Yo! MTV Raps, I take a break from rock and roll to write a little bit about hip hop. In the late 80s and early 90s hip hop ruled my musical life. During this often called 'Golden Era' I discovered so much incredible music. As I am slowly replacing the CDs I've had for twenty-five plus years with vinyl copies, I'm going to talk about some albums that had a really important impact on me during some very formative years.

Like everyone my approximate age, there was no escaping "The Humpty Dance" in 1990.  It was such a huge hit and was omnipresent on MTV back then.  It also has one of the great beats in the history of hip hop. With it's deep, sliding bass line, you couldn't ask for a better canvas for the absurd lyrics that came next.  Now I can't say that the rest of the record ever hits a high that high again, but it's a strong record and is more than just a home for their one hit single.

The record is an odd, sort of concept album about sex packets that you can buy like drugs.  It's kind of a far out idea for a hip hop record, particularly in 1990.  Not every song is tied to that narrative, but in particular the second half of the album leans pretty heavy into that story.  Some things hit and some things miss.  But it's extremely innovated and never boring.  

The songs tend to be kind of long.  And while that's certainly not uncommon for hip hop, eight of the albums ten real songs (excluding skits) are over five minutes with five of them breaking six minutes.  It's a bit much at times and I sometime feel like if they trimmed some of those down a bit this could have been a slightly tighter album.  But, at the end of the day this is a pretty classic release that took hip hop into uncharted territory when it first came out.  Digital Underground had a bunch of albums out after this and I'm admittedly not as familiar with them as I am with this one.  I might need to revist those at some point.

Digital Underground - Sex Packets:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kk9oSlBDREtt5Wd9ylL8DcDawExE-UeUg