[5] It was stated that while in Brooklyn, the Digable Planets "observed, absorbed, and rocked the many styles of speak, gear, smoke, and sound that New York had to offer and incorporated the various shades into a stance that was strangely celebratory, wary, indulgent, and subversive".

[7] The album has been illustrated as "a block party, but transformed by Digable's 'ghettopoesis' into a cool abstraction of street life",[7] and "a motley clash of sounds that celebrate boom box batteries-in-the-freezer ghetto ingenuity as a raw, empowered expression".

[6] While on a world tour in support of their album Reachin' ..., the group collected vinyl records from various countries, and formed a deep rapport with various musicians they were performing with.

[5] Ishmael Butler stated "I read where George Clinton said the stuff that's inaudible the first couple of listens adds longevity to a record, because it draws the person in.

[5] At times, Blowout Comb functions as a reminder that hip-hop's park jam era tended to eschew downtown gloss in favor of dirty, improvisational, risky fun, and that the social ills that plagued the first generation of b-boys continue to fester unabated.

Many of the lyrics on Blowout Comb include references to the Five-Percent Nation, as well as the Black Panther Party, which weren't present on the group's previous album.

[5] He incorporated many of these concepts into the album's lyrics, as he didn't want Digable Planets' Afrocentrism to get overlooked by the cross-over appeal of their 1992 hit single "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)".

[7] Blowout Comb also contains many references to Urban culture, with a range of allusions to block parties, corner stores, public housing, barbershops, incarcerated freedom-fighters, black nationalist texts, and African-American artists.

wrote that "On Blowout Comb, the beloved Brooklyn borough, and by extension New York city as a whole, is lovingly depicted in all of its wondrous microcosmic complexity as a place of convergence and collusion".

[6] While several music writers and journalists have viewed Blowout Comb's lyrics as being more "ambiguous" and "hard to decipher", others found them to be more "looser" and "less scripted" than their previous album.

[8] Heidi Siegmund of the Los Angeles Times wrote that it maintains a subtle but consistent mood that, unlike their debut album, warrants repeated listening.

[14] Time magazine's Christopher John Farley found Digable Planets' rebellious lyrics "constructive" and felt that the live musicians employed by the group lets the songs develop into extended jams.

[20] In a mixed review, Eric Berman of Rolling Stone magazine found the music sluggish and formless, despite the group's admirable experimentation and "creamy" raps.

[17] Martin Johnson, writing in the Chicago Reader, credited the group for successfully reinventing themselves with streetwise, black nationalistic lyrics, but felt that the music fizzles out as they get distracted with their own rhetoric.

[22] Spin magazine named it the fifth best album of 1994, and editor Craig Marks wrote that Digable Planets improved drastically with boldly political lyrics and music that was as expressive as Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder.

[23] In a retrospective review, AllMusic's John Bush cited its production as some of the greatest beats ever on a hip hop album and asserted that, unlike Reachin', the "underrated" Blowout Comb has proven to be an enduring classic.

[25] Colin Larkin, writing in the Encyclopedia of Popular Music (2000), said that part of the reason was because the album lacked a song as catchy as the group's debut single "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)".

[12] Music journalist Peter Shapiro viewed it as a failed attempt at abandoning pop for "street" appeal by another group whose original success derived from a more amiable style of hip hop.

[26] Shortly after the release of Blowout Comb, Digable Planets disbanded in early 1995 due to the passing away of Mecca's parents, creative differences, and displeasure with the music industry.