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Black Up
$13.99 CD
$16.99 LP+MP3
S/T EP
$11.99 CD
Of Light EP
$11.99 CD
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SHABAZZ PALACES
Black Up
(Sub Pop)
 "Endeavors for Never"
"Are You...Can You...Were You?"
The very first moment I heard Shabazz Palaces, I felt it. Like the Tribe of Shabazz, from which their name is taken, the sound was ancient yet spoke of a future, the tale of a once delicate people becoming hardened in order to survive. It could also be likened to the experience of hearing an old friend's voice, but in a completely new atmosphere. That voice belonged to Ishmael 'Butterfly' Butler, a member of Digable Planets who won a Grammy for their boho '60s-jazz hipster inspired debut Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space). A year later, in 1994, the rap trio would recast themselves as Black Power-informed Brooklyn militants on Blowout Comb, an album that's still considered a classic in many circles, and then subsequently disbanded not long after. The next two decades would find Butler making random guest appearances on records by the likes of the Roots, Camp Lo, 4Hero, and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and releasing an album in 2003 with his short-lived Cherrywine project. The birth of his new duo, however, is one of the most mysterious musical beginnings that I can recall in a long time.
I first learned of this enigmatic group during one of those late-night blog-reading sessions in which I stumbled across high praise for two mini-albums (a self-titled debut and Of Light) from Shabazz Palaces, and was totally intrigued when I learned that it featured Butler and the Zimbabwe-born Baba Maraire. I searched for more biographical info and didn't come up with much, not even on the duo's cosmic Arabesque website, where they were selling the two records directly. Though still reluctant with an interview, Butler (now known as Palaceer Lazaro) has been a little more forthcoming recently, and we have since learned that in spite of his low-key recording output since Digable Planets called it a day and he left New York for his original home of Seattle, he's been actively creating all this time, culminating with Shabazz Palaces. The first hip-hop act signed by the legendary Sub-Pop label, their Black Up full-length is like no other hip-hop record anyone's heard before -- or at least in a very long time. Much like the avant recordings of artist like Sun-Ra, Albert Ayler, Anti-Pop Consortium, Mike Ladd, Divine Styler, Jungle Brothers, or even Odd Future (think Tyler at age 40 instead of 20, having resolved some issues), the duo creates a world of their own design. It's an Afro-Dirty South meets Pacific Northwest meets outer-space fusion of the black experience, where imagination runs rampant, free-association is the foundation and stream of consciousness the medium, and skill shows its more daring side -- pop status be damned.
Though most of Shabazz Palaces' tracks exist in the two- to three-minute range, songs change direction casually and frequently, and while the forms are familiar, everything seems dismantled and reconfigured with a new sense of purpose. During album highlight "Endeavors for Never," female duo THEESATISFACTION (also recently signed to Sub Pop?!) makes the only guest appearance, their voices reminiscent of classic Lauryn Hill as they sing over a smoky, creeping collage of jazz-horn loops, kalimba, synths, sampled piano, and stumbling beats. Butler's voice enters the song about halfway through, and the song becomes a new, wholly original variation of the female singer/male rapper formula. There's nothing degrading or derogatory about Shabazz Palaces' music either. Butler's stride and flow is fresh to ears worn numb by the current slew of lil' and young rappers; he effortlessly flips the script with words and skill that only comes with age, yet his voice weaves and bounces around the rhythms with a youthful vibrancy. Never preachy, Butler's former Butterfly moniker continues to be appropriate as his slightly playful, magnetic tone and the instantly recognizable cadence of his rhymes still melts the listener, the rapper articulately blending street slang with poetry and an Afrocentric cosmology, much like Mos Def, Rakim and Pusha T.
Shabazz Palaces blend samples of African, Indonesian and various other world musics with American soul and jazz sounds, adding live percussion, shakers, kalimba and an array of analog electronics on top and lots of bass rumbling beneath. An Afro-psychedelic fusion for a hip-hop era currently devoid of pure originality, it's refreshing to hear the duo move from the space ways to project hallways in 16 bars, yet it's never dumb or dull. Butler is an avid listener of African music and you can detect that undercurrent throughout the album; it's the kind of music that a crew like Zulu Nation or the Native Tongues would/should be making in this new millennium -- think Ethiopiques meets dubstep meets crunk meets Afro-punk. Shabazz Palaces is proof that there's still great new hip-hop out there; it's not dead, it can be rich and mature, introspective and totally out-there, edgy and experimental, extremely soulful yet still abstract, glitchy, inspiring, and above all good and of true quality. This ain't your little brother's Goblin, that's for sure. During "Recollections of the Wraith," Butler requests, "Clear some space out / so we can space out," which is exactly the way the listener should approach Black Up. There's a world waiting here for you to get lost in and, without a doubt, I can recommend every second of it! [DG]
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