Ishmael Butler beim Riot Fest Music Festival in Chicago
Photo: imago/Daniel DeSlover
Shabazz Palaces play hip-hop that comes through the fog. Through the starry nebula. The duo was founded in 2009 by Ishmael Butler, who as Butterfly played a key role in the music of the rap trio Digable Planets. Along with A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul and Jurassic 5, the Digable Planets were the most philanthropic thing that US hip-hop had to offer in the 1990s. And never shallow. A perfect combination of hip-hop, jazz and complex lyrics.
With the Shabazz Palaces, Ishmael Butler shot his music into space. But not in the sense of any science fiction fantasies, but as an expression and as a further chapter in the inexhaustible pop mythology of Afrofuturism. The “black experience” is told from the perspective of someone who remains forever alien. In the very abstract, enigmatic lyrics of Shabbaz Palaces, the USA appears as a forbidding, cold place that only becomes recognizable when viewed from the alien’s eyes.
What you get from the lyrics on the new Shabazz Palaces album “Exotic Birds of Prey” fluctuates between drastic description, indecipherable metaphors and sarcasm. “Well Known Nobody,” for example, is a role-playing prose that has been broken at least twice: “I am not a racist / Snakes are cool / I love niggas / Watch them groove, with these / Well known nobodies / I can’t really do it, man / Well known nobodies / Invited to the party«.
The music on “Exotic Birds of Prey” is more washed out than ever, and that’s meant as a compliment. In its minimalist whimsy and intangibility, what Ishmael Butler has produced musically since the departure of his duo partner Tendai Maraire in 2020 is truly unique in the genre. There are hardly any identifiable melodies and little structure to easily hook into. Nevertheless, none of this sounds deconstructive, but rather as if it is beyond everyone and radically stubborn. Feature guests like Purple Tate Nate and Irene Barber, all of whom are relatively unknown, blend seamlessly into the chaos of obscured sounds, whining and completely radioed trap. On their eighth studio album, Shabazz Palaces once again develop their own musical universe with their own musical laws.
These sounds actually only have precursors in the more spaced-out stuff that appeared on the Anticon label in the noughties, for example in the early Clouddead albums. Except that this abstract, cloudy fog music doesn’t come in hippie-esque white nerd mode, but as an Afrofuturistic narrative.
Shabazz Palaces: »Exotic Birds of Prey« (Sub Pop / Cargo)
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