Hip-hop in the '80s, jazz in the '60s, and funk in the '70s are all well-documented revolutionary expressions in Africa-American music. Less familiar, though, is their meeting ground in Cee Knowledge and the Cosmic Funk Orchestra in 2000, and beyond. Craig Irving, the Philadelphia hip-hop vocalist better known as Doodlebug of the defunct Grammy-winning hip-hop trio Digable Planets, adopted the moniker Cee Knowledge while studying the Nation of Islam in 1988 at Howard University. Knowledge grew up in a city full of musical traditions from the cosmic jazz of the Sun Ra Arkestra to the new Philly soul of Bilal and Musiq Soulchild and the groundbreaking hip-hop of the Roots and Eve. It was a place for Knowledge to absorb all kinds of music from early hip-hop and '70s funk to avant-garde jazz and new Philly soul.
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