[ MUSIC ]
COURTESY OF ENTERTAINMENT ARTISTS
Humpty Hump, the alter ego of Digital Underground's Shock-G, was born out of a lucky pass by a bargain bin of prop noses. His appearance in videos sparked fans' curiosity about the "new member" of the band.
‘Humpty’ almost pau
IT'S PUSHING up on two o'clock in the morning when Shock-G answers the phone in his Oakland, Calif., hotel room.
"This movie sucks! Did you see the acting that Kevin Bacon just did? It's horrible!"
Turns out I've gotten a hold of the guy as he's relaxing with his girl and watching the movie "Trapped" on the hotel television. Should I just leave him alone for the night and reschedule for another time? Nope.
Digital Underground
With local opening act Sudden RushWhere: Pipeline Cafe, 805 Pohukaina St.
When: 10 p.m. Monday
Tickets: $20, 18 and over
Call: 589-1999
"I'm chillin' up in the hotel room doing interviews," he says. "You're the third one."
Never mind, then -- let's do this.
FOR THE uninitiated, the Digital Underground got its start on the streets of Oakland back in 1987 when Shock-G (real name Gregory Jacobs) moved to the Bay Area from Tampa, Fla. His partnership with Chopmaster J produced the group's first single, "Underwater Rimes," which ended up a hit in Europe. Two years later, the Digital Underground had expanded to include members DJ Fuze, Money-B and Schmoovy-Schmoov, and they landed a deal with Tommy Boy Records to produce a single, "Doowutchalike."
Unlike other rap artists who began to adopt a harder, more gangsta-like feel to their music, the Digital Underground stuck to a carefree party vibe and prided itself on keeping things positive. According to Shock-G, it was all about the fact that "everything that's good ain't always serious ... it's okay to be funky sometimes, it's okay for different races to get it on, it's okay for the rich to mingle with the poor.
"Let's all get together and have a few laughs," he said.
It was this willingness to let it all hang out that ended up introducing the world to Shock-G's alter-ego, Edward Ellington Humphries III, also known as Humpty Hump. At first, Humpty was supposed to be just a bit comic relief on "Doowutchalike."
"(He) was just a nerd guy for that song," Shock-G said. "He wasn't somebody that was going to reappear."
But when it got down to filming the video, Humpty Hump began to take on a life of his own.
"While we were shopping for props ... we came across this box of bargain-bin noses," Shock-G explains. "They had four kinds -- dog noses, shark noses, pig noses and a brown, Groucho Marx-type nose and glasses.
"So while Money-B is on the other side of the store, I'm over here looking in the mirror, trying these different things on. It had me laughing out loud at myself ... and we figured if it made us laugh that much, it would make someone else laugh."
A few months later, after the video got released and the group was out hustling for radio airplay, Shock-G began to get a sense of how popular Humpty Hump would turn out to be. Their publicist would call with stories about how fans were asking about the funny-looking guy with the glasses -- who was he? Was he in the group? From that point on, Humpty began to exist as another member of the Digital Underground.
"I won't sit here and lie and take the credit for being a genius," Shock-G says. "Humpty fell in my lap. But, I will accept the credit for running with it and being able to watch it evolve and saying, 'Oh, this is cool. Let's keep this going.' "
FOR THE first few years of the 1990s, the Digital Underground rode the wave of success from their debut album, "Sex Packets," followed by 1991's "Sons of the P" and 1993's "The Body-Hat Syndrome." But gangsta rap would turn out to be a lot more popular -- fans began to want more of the guns and violence that the genre used as material for most songs, while Digital Underground tracks like "Freaks of the Industry," "Kiss You Back" and "I Get Around" fell out of favor. For about five years, the group couldn't get a gig, and Shock-G began to focus his efforts on producing other artists like The Luniz and Tupac Shakur.
But by 1998, the scene started to come back around as mainstream hip-hop got less grimy and a little more jiggy. For the next five years, the Digital Underground would be rediscovered by kids that were in elementary and junior high school when the group first came out, or were unable to come to the shows when they performed with the likes of Public Enemy, Big Daddy Kane and Queen Latifah.
"Them big arena shows, they used to kind of scare the people in the suburbs," he said. "So a lot of (them) either weren't allowed to go by their parents, or they were too young ... and it's all those people who've been showing up to see us the last five years."
AND YOU can add anyone who grew up in the islands to that list of people itching to see the Digital Underground live in concert. "The Humpty Dance" continues to get radio play to this day on local airwaves, and it's not uncommon to hear "I Get Around" or the remix of "I've Got Five On It" playing to a packed dance floor in Honolulu nightclubs. When Shock-G and Money-B take to the stage at Pipeline Cafe with new group members Esinchill, Metaphysical and Dialect, it will be the first time the group has ever performed in Hawaii.
"Closest I've been to Hawaii is San Diego," Shock-G says with a chuckle. And it's a good thing they've decided to make the trip now, because the group has already "decided to disband and bring Digital Underground to a halt," according to the frontman. Monday's concert will probably be the first and last time Hawaii residents will get a chance to see Humpty Hump do his dance.
"We're going to make that move on Jan. 1, 2004 ... so our bodies can make it through," he said. "We all probably got liver and kidney damage from (messing) with all this doowhutchalike."
Click for online
calendars and events.
