80 Empire x Doodlebug [Digable Planets] – A Galactic Love Supreme album + New Video ft BoneCrusher, Kxng Crooked – New hip hop from 80 Empire and Doodlebug [Digable Planets]

April 24, 2025

Chart-topping hip hop duo, 80 Empire joins forces with Digable Planets’ Doodlebug for their album, A Galactic Love Supreme.

The 11 track LP is time-space travelling hip hop, jazz and soul with a healthy dash of reggae and an unapologetic Italian base. It features Bone Crusher, KXNG Crooked, DJ Skillspinz, Saladin Allah, stage-commanding vocals from actress Michole White (The Wonder Years, Family Matters and Starz’ BMF), and urgent yet euphoric notes from The Brass-A-Holics.

It’s an ode to the futuristic 80s’s vibe that shaped 90’s hip hop’s rise as not just music, but a movement – that era of unadulterated hope and Ferris Bueller-type luck. It’s the consciousness shift that’s needed amid the ongoing natural disasters, pandemic recovery, tariff threats and music industry turmoil.

“I want to do some shows with these cats because this is important music. It’s an important message,” Doodlebug says. “In a way, this project has kind of revived my love for doing this hip hop thing.” Perhaps best known for his verse on “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat),” Doodlebug has toured and transcended the world for years sustaining that vibe. He pulled in an artist from Paris for the AGLS cover art, and nods to John Coltrane for the album’s title.

The Toronto-bred brothers, Adrian and Lucas Rezza, collectively known as the rapping, producing, singing-songwriting pair behind 80 Empire, met Philly’s-own Doodlebug (neé Craig Irving) after one of his shows in 2011. They immediately recorded their first song together, “Amore,” and ultimately flipped it into the full-length AGLS.

“It’s cool now that the three of us have come together like the Avengers,” Lucas proclaims. “Mother Earth Is Dying” and “Breathe” especially highlight the jazz-heavy hip hop that they’re known for separately and now together as hip hop’s first multinational supergroup.

However, the most potent message may be in their latest visuals, “Nothing Lasts Forever.” The video pays homage to the rich, soulful culture of LA – an area where the black population, once beaming with Hollywood glamour, is fading from the chokehold of wildfires and socio-political economics.