Well, I feel like I need to add a new feature to Virtual Bomaniland, so I’m going to discuss an old school “classic” every Thursday. Some will be albums I love that everyone loves. Some will be those that were once considered part of the canon but now have been forgotten. Others will be classics that were never that damn good in the first place.
No fancy title. Just the Old School Record of the Week.
This week–Digital Underground’s Sex Packets.

igital Underground had a strange musical life. They were technically a group, but Shock G was the only person signed under DU. Their first album was a visionary classic, but they could never do a true repeat because sampling laws changed to make a production like Sex Packets too expensive for the sales hip hop records generated in those days. And they are considered by many to be a one-hit wonder because “The Humpty Dance,” a novelty record, trumped everything else in their catalog in terms of notoriety.
But outside of the Shocklees, Vietnam Sadler and DJ Muggs, you’ll have a hard time finding anyone as good as patchwork sampling as Shock G. Guys like Dre and Kanye West were great at finding the perfect break to loop, but Shock and those folks were fantastic and chopping those samples up and throwing other samples before, after, over and under the backbone of a track. Sex Packets is a masterpiece in that respect. Shock took a stack of P-Funk records and gave them fantastic new life. Check “Doowhatchulike” and see how he scratched in so many layers and did so while creating a leaner sound than the Bomb Squad would. You can hear the same thing on “The Humpty Dance.”
Another gigantic plus for this record–“Freaks of the Industry” is still one of the greatest sex joints ever. Shock was even kind enough to let Money B get a verse, and he handles it. Shock’s last verse is some of the greatest stuff ever made and comes with one of the best closings…
“After the ride/put my clothes on and walk outside/and before anybody had a chance to speak/I say yo, ‘don’t say nothin/I guess I’m just a freak!'”
Might not sound like much to you from there, but throw that in with that killer bassline and moaning sounds that work subtly (in fact, more subtly than Marvin Gaye’s “You Sure Love to Ball”) and you’ve got somethin’ serious.
But here’s what makes this album eternal–its storylines are absolutely absurd but still totally believable.
True story–me and Lord Amaru were in his office talking about that album, and he mentioned how he was upset that he didn’t get to attend “Gutfest ’89,” a festival immortalized in a song of the same title. Years later, he learned that the festival didn’t exist.
“You know,” he said, “I figured I would have known about that. I was in San Jose, so someone would have told me about that. But it sounded so real.”
I responded, “wait, it was fake? The packets were real, right?”
The packets are the infamous sex packets. According to Shock, they were created by some doctor and could recreate the euphoria of sex. I figured that some crackpot doctor had come up with them. I doubted they worked, but I did believe someone had come up with them.
Of course, no such thing has ever been created.
And if you didn’t know, Shock and Humpty were the same person. Most of us know this already, but don’t act like Shock didn’t have you fooled for years. He would even show up in concert dressed as Humpty with his brother, who looked much like him, pretending to be Shock.
But it all sounded so damn real while sounding totally unrealistic. Every bit of this album is like that. It’s a really bizarre trip through a science fiction incarnation of Oakland. Absolute genius from start to finish.
But all we know is “The Humpty Dance” these days. In ’97, The Source named Sex Packets as one of the 100 greatest albums ever. If someone began to do such a list now, it’s unlikely Sex Packets would make it. That’s okay. I mean, the album is 16 years old, and it dropped during the infancy of hip hop’s album era.
Here’s the problem–I doubt people would even consider it. It’s easily one of the greatest albums ever made and one that shouldn’t be forgotten. Had Shock not had to dramatically change his style because of the change in laws, there’s no telling what the group could have done (especially with Tupac in tow). They made some great songs after Sex Packets, particularly “Good Thing We’re Rappin,” a favorite among those who luuuuuve to do nekkid cartwheels.
But they never recovered. Cypress Hill suffered similarly, but their stoner sound was more easily transferred to synthesizers and they became the patron saints of stoner white boys everywhere.
Either way, Sex Packets is an amazing record, one you should check if you haven’t already. Lemme know if you’d like to.