Doo-Bop

This will go down in history as the final studio album by an artist who transcended genre and shook the foundations of music several times with a catalog that's unsurpassed. Davis was always one to move ahead of (or at least sidestep) expectations. This 1992 album finds him and producer Easy Mo Bee mining the hip-hop/jazz fusion of A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Arrested Development, and Digable Planets, a style that was au courant at the time. Even though the producer went on to work with Candy Dulfer, Big Daddy Kane, 2Pac, Alicia Keys, and LL Cool J, hip-hop and jazz critics alike were hoping for more from this collaboration; the beats and arrangements were pretty straightforward. Nonetheless, this sounds right in line with subsequent DJ efforts like the Verve Remixed and Buddha-Bar collections, proving that Miles was on point all the way to the end and beyond. Davis himself sounds engaged, which is saying something. Highlights include “Mystery,” “The Doo Bop Song,” and “Chocolate Chip.”