Welcome back to another week and another new album to discuss, this week focuses on one of the great writers and poets in hip hop currently, Billy Woods. Billy Woods is an enigma, an existential and brooding man with the lyrical capacity to make you question everything you’ve ever known. He has crafted one of the most haunting and mind-bending discographies in modern underground hip hop between his solo efforts and albums with Elucid under the group name Armand Hammer.
You never quite know what kind of twisted and philosophical concepts are about to be fed to you when you start listening to a new effort from Billy Woods. The first track on his newest album, “Aethiopes,” is a stark and haunting recount of how he felt as a kid living in Zimbabwe. With a high suspicion the guilty, yet free and living dictator Mengistu Mariam was his next-door neighbor due to the high walls, security cameras and strange parties being thrown there every night.
He has built his name off of his extensive knowledge of abstract pop culture, systemic racism and complex views on gang violence; Woods does this with unique contrasts of life between the United States and Africa. Woods is the son of a Zimbabwean father who was a Marxist author and a Jamaican mother who was an English literature professor. As a result, he lived in Zimbabwe as a child, following his parents to live in many countries before they settled down in New York. Another effect of this is that Woods is well-read and knowledgeable both in book and street smarts and it is evident in his music.
Woods effortlessly takes conspiracies, folk tales and otherworldly concepts and puts both himself and the listener in the front seat of them, daring you to switch your attention to something else. Not to mention that all of these concepts are made fairly digestible through the ear candy of his music’s production.
Throughout the course of “Aethiopes,” the songs take on new concepts, each more mind-blowing than the next. “No Hard Feelings,” tells the story of a man who has to walk down his apartment steps every morning and scoot past a man smoking crack on his steps. Woods expands this idea into a deep meditation on the drug epidemic in inner cities and the power struggle they create.
I would definitely recommend reading the lyrics as you listen to this album. Woods’ lyrics read equally poetic as they do depressing; they roll off his tongue yet also seem to be uttered like they’ve left a bitter taste in his mouth.
“Aethiopes” is fully produced by the legendary Preservation, who creates an equally somber and menacing sound throughout his discography. Some of the standout feature verses on this album are delivered by Boldy James, Elucid of Armand Hammer, Quelle Chris, and El-P of Run the Jewels.
I wish I had the capacity to dive deeper into every track of this album but this review would be multiple pages long. There are a lot of exceptionally heavy topics discussed throughout the album and I only covered the first two songs, yet I can’t fully emphasize my recommendation that you lend your ear to this masterpiece’s 40-minute run time. Woods’ style takes some getting used to, but you may soon find yourself enjoying it for its complexity and harrowing sounds. As a good friend of mine said about Billy Woods and this album in particular, “It feels like a bridge to the divine.” An enlightening experience overall, 9.5/10.
Other songs to listen to this week:
- Boonie Flow by Baby Smoove
- Stick Up by Jae Skeese and Big Ghost LTD.
- New Info by Redveil
- Phil Jackson by Tae Retro & Babytron
Other albums to listen to this week
- It’s Almost Dry by Pusha T
- Learn 2 Swim by Redveil
- Man Alive! By King Krule
