[Ladybug:]

That's right so

Step into the jams

Let the sugars make you sweet

Kept it underhand cause the planets get you free

Ladybug mecca with the groove in time and space

With the funkin rhythm butter chase

[Butterfly:]

Goddam....

-The Digable Planets

After a nine year separation, New York's funkalicious Digable Planets have reunited. Tonight I went to see them heat up the cool Victorian night and was completely blown away by the amazingly talented Ladybug, one of the groups' three lyricists.

I can barely express in words how empowering it was to see a strong, intelligent woman take centre stage in one of my favourite music forms, hip hop. Hip hop has the potential to be extremely powerful and act as a strong messenger for change, should it choose to be so. But often it takes the form of "hip-POP" in the words of K'Naan, and only promotes bullshit materialism, misogyny and violence.

In the face of this entrenchment of mainstream musical control and commercialism, it is so refreshing to watch the Digable Ps rise up again from the rumbling underground, and to hear Ladybug's wise lyrics speak straight to our hearts and souls.

Thank you, Ladybug and the DPs, for uplifting myself and your many other admirers tonight. You demonstrate in vibrant colour that it is possible to live a life without surrender.