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For old-school hip-hop heads, there’s a reissue better than getting busy in a Burger King bathroom coming this spring: an expansion of Digital Underground’s debut LP Sex Packets.

Released (a bit late, c’est la vie) for its 35th anniversary on March 20, the remastered album has been sequenced on two CDs or LPs to mirror the original running order of the CD. It’ll also feature multiple bonus tracks depending on format: all versions have the cassette bonus tracks “A Tribute to the Early Days” and the unedited version of album cut “Gutfest ’89,” along with the previously unreleased “Blue View”; CD and digital versions will get a 12″ instrumental of signature hit “The Humpty Dance,” and digital copies get that track’s original radio mix. The vinyl is pressed on clear wax with black and light blue splatter; all packages feature new liner notes by the album’s original executive producer Atron Gregory and a special 3-D gatefold incorporating pop-up artwork drawn by the rap group’s late mastermind Shock G (equally remembered as the voice of alter-ego Humpty Hump).

Digital Underground was a key signpost as hip-hop moved further toward the mainstream in the late ’80s and early ’90s. As Shock G, Humpty Hump, Mr. Blowfish and other personas, Gregory Jacobs created a sort of hip-hop answer to Parliament-Funkadelic (sampling some of those classic cuts as well as utilizing live instrumentation). Occasionally ribald and always humorous, lead single “Doowutchyalike” galvanized clubgoers, but “The Humpty Dance” was the breakout, offering West Coast swagger (Jacobs hailed from the Bay Area, as did vocalist Money B and DJ Fuze on turntables) with a little Miami bass emphasis in places (member Kenny K came from Tampa). Add the Humpty Hump mystique on top (which saw Jacobs don a fur-lined hat and oversize plastic nose attached to thick glasses), plus that irresistible chorus, and it’s no wonder the Top 20 hit was getting Black people, white people, Puerto Ricans and even Samoans to get down. A consummate writer, producer, illustrator and vocalist, Shock G led the Digital Underground through thick and thin – a later line-up helped give Tupac Shakur his start on the road to hip-hop immortality – before his tragic passing in 2021 at the too-young age of 57.

Sex Packets loads up on March 20 and can be pre-ordered at the links below. (As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.)

Sex Packets (35th Anniversary Edition) (Tommy Boy, 2026)

2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

* CD/LP/digital bonus track
** CD/digital bonus track
*** digital bonus track

CD/LP 1

1. The Humpty Dance
2. The Way We Swing
3. Rhymin’ on the Funk
4. The New Jazz (One)
5. Underwater Rimes (Remix)
6. Gutfest ’89 (Edit)
7. The Danger Zone
8. Freaks of the Industry

CD/LP 2

1. Doowutchyalike
2. Packet Prelude
3. Sex Packets
4. Street Scene
5. Packet Man
6. Packet Reprise
7. A Tribute to the Early Days *
8. Blue View (previously unreleased) *
9. The Humpty Dance (Humpstramental Mix) *
10. Gutfest ’89 **
11. The Humpty Dance (Mini-Hump Radio Mix) ***

CD/LP 1 and CD/LP 2, Tracks 1-6 released as Tommy Boy/TNT Records TBCD 1026, 1990
CD/LP 2, Tracks 7 and 10 released on Tommy Boy/TNT Records cassette TBC 1026, 1990
CD/LP 2, Tracks 9 and 11 released on “The Humpty Dance” 12″ – Tommy Boy/TNT TB 944, 1990