Life in Their Soul-er System Is Slick--It’s ‘Cool Like Dat’ : Pop: With its blend of jazz and hip-hop--and philosophical musings--Digable Planets is grooving to raves and a Top 10 single.

During his days at the University of Massachusetts in the late ‘80s, Ishmael Butler was at a career crossroads, juggling rap, basketball and engineering.

Rap won.

Butler, who now goes by the name Butterfly, formed the innovative rap trio Digable Planets two and a half years ago. Moving quickly, the trio got a contract with Pendulum/Elektra Records and has just cracked the national Top 10 with its first single--a nifty marriage of hip-hop and ‘40s-’50s-style jazz titled “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat).”

“Rebirth” is delivered in a seductive, laid-back style that is closer to the old jazz-backed beat poetry than to contemporary hip-hop. The acoustic bass, the cornerstone of cool jazz, anchors the Digable sound, which features samples from decades-old pieces by jazz giants such as Art Blakey and Sonny Rollins.

The single is attracting much the same type of career-making attention and raves that Arrested Development generated last year with its trailblazing “Tennessee” single--and the rest of the album, titled “Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space),” maintains that high standard.

Looking back on all that has happened to his group, Butler has only twinges of regret about backing out of school and a basketball scholarship.

“I love playing basketball and I still miss it,” the 22-year-old Brooklynite says. “But the pull of a music career was too strong. I was listening to rap and thinking I could do something really different with it.”

Butler began in rap by forming Digable Planets with Ann Vieira (who goes by the name Ladybug), 19, and Craig Irving (Doodlebug), 23, both Howard University students. All three write lyrics, while Butler produces and composes the music.

Rather than recounting the horrors of life in the ‘hood, this group takes a higher ground, musing philosophically about peace and humanity, with frames of reference reaching out to the writings of Camus and Kafka. Sometimes their highbrow commentaries take a pointed political turn, such as the piercing abortion-rights argument on “La Femme Fetal.”

Digable’s jazz influence is largely traceable to Butler’s background. “My father got me into jazz and helped me appreciate the feel and texture of the music and a sense of its place in our culture,” explains Butler, who played alto sax during his early teen years.

Other rap groups, such as Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, have flirted with jazz, but none has incorporated it with such a deft commercial touch. Butler claims that the music’s considerable fan appeal is incidental. “What we mainly wanted to do was be true to our musical vision,” he says. “We just hoped enough people would like it so we could keep on making records.”

To Butler, merging his two passions, jazz and hip-hop, seemed natural. “The hip-hop culture of today is like the jazz culture used to be,” he points out. “They’re similar in many ways. Both have their own fashions and their own language.”

Digable has its own language too. Both on the album and in the interview Butler often slips into a kind of philosophy-speak. About the meaning of the group’s name, he says, “We are all individual planets and we can set up our planets in our own way, but they must coexist. The planets are, well, digable.”

And how about his existentialist explanation of the trio’s fascination with insects, evident from their nicknames and various references in the material? “We see insects as a community species,” he says. “We’re like insects. We stay in the community that spawned us. The people in this group admire insect behavior.”

Any confusion about Digable’s message, Butler confidently predicts, will be cleared up by the trio’s upcoming eight-week U.S. club tour (including L.A. dates not yet scheduled). “Some people who may not understand where we’re coming from will have a better idea when they see us do the material live,” he says. “Everything will fall into place--almost like magic.”