Digital Underground — Sex Packets

Gregory "Shock G" Jacobs form his alternative hip-hop group Digital Underground in Tampa, Florida in 1987, along with Tampa hip-hop radio deejay Kenneth "Kenny-K" Waters and Jimi "Chopmaster J" Dright. In 1989, the group is temporarily relocated in Oakland, California, to recording their debut disk. The success of the first single "Underwater Rimes", released with TNT Records, bring the group to deal with Tommy Boy Records.

The production is handled by Digital Underground aka The Underground, with instrumentals played by The Piano Man (piano, synths), Randy Brooks (synths), Kent Racker (bass), and Chopmaster J (drums). Shock G is the main rapper of the CD, along with Money B. The CD is a concept album about a pharmaceutical substance allegedly developed by the government to provide its intended users such as astronauts with a satisfying sexual experience in determined situations.

The group debuts in 1990 with an accessible, slow, vibrant, irregular and fun party album, based on George Clinton's music. Most of the cuts are jam funk over six minutes in which the rappers and Humpty Hump, Shock G's alter ego, dropping funky bars on light-hearted and fun themes, relaxing for a little excessive time due to the scarcity of topics: the second part of the album is entirely focused on the "packets" theme, exaggerated here in an infinite number of tracks, because of their rather original concept on an imaginative drug in pills that allows people to have hallucinatory sexual experiences. The performers are not technically the best rappers of the period, but they do their job well: entertain you. Their bold lyricism and relaxed style combined with the fresh rhythms of Clinton's children gives a couple of bangers ("The Humpty Dance", "Doowutchyalike"), creating one of the most creative and fun albums of the year, a funk rapping effort in all respects.

Released by TNT and Tommy Boy, the album enters in the UK Albums, peaking #24 in the Billboard 200 and in the top of rap albums, becoming one of the best-selling of the season, certified platinum by RIAA for the million physical copies in six months. The disk is greeted with mixed reviews by contemporary critics, then is retrospectively rediscovered as one of the best hip-hop albums of the season, also inserted in The Source's "100 Best Rap Albums" (1998) in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" (2005) and Rolling Stone's "200 Greatest Hip-Hop Albums of All Time" (2022).

Rating: 8/10.