#aethiopes

[30000songs]

#1,261 - Aethiopes - Billy Woods

Still missing something. More songcraft as opposed to rants, mayhaps.

60/100

[sound-bombing]

billy woods & Preservation - Aethiopes (Backwoodz, 2022)  Genre: Abstract Hip Hop Artwork: Rembrandt (Two African Men, 1661) Bandcamp

[beatsforbrothels]

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Billy Woods - Smith + Cross

[ohgodmusic]

Black astronaut, cop a space suit and jet off my steps Challenger launch burnin' bright, burn to death Burn in the firmament, charbroiled, catch the hair Black boy burned crisp, pursed black lips Black marionettes dance limp over the pit

- "No Hard Feelings", Aethiopes (2022), Billy Woods

[beatsforbrothels]

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Black astronaut, cop a space suit and jet off my steps Challenger launch burnin' bright, burn to death Burn in the firmament, charbroiled, catch the hair Black boy burned crisp, pursed black lips Black marionettes dance limp over the pit The kindly ones distant as the winter's sun A mad woman whistlin', you can hear it if you listen That's that empty pipe hissin', that's him crying and twitchin' That's the vanishing point in the distance Between us just the glass thickness Cracked mirrors flash rictus Skin pulled tight to the skull, that's the sickness

[ohgodmusic]

The guests start having doubts, the host nowhere to be found It's ghosts in the building's bones, so many skeletons in the ground When everything collapse, he just melt into the crowd Suitcase packed, melted down the crown

- “Asylum”, Aethiopes (2022), billy woods

[lovejustforaday]

2022 Year End List - #2

Aethiopes - Billy Woods

Main Genres: Conscious Rap, Abstract Rap, Experimental Rap, Political Rap

A decent sampling of: Jazz Rap

WARNING: This album features very graphic and disturbing lyrical imagery, and explicitly discusses addiction, poverty, and institutional racism.

After spending a few years getting into his work as one half of the socially conscious, socialist-leaning abstract hip hop duo Armand Hammer, I finally decided to check out Billy Woods solo material. According to many of the online music spaces that I frequent, I could not have picked a better time.

Woods himself is a man radical both in thought and in his approach to his songcraft. He has been somewhat of a dark horse in the New York hip hop scene for many years now, and he almost had to quit making music at one point. Essentially, he is one of the very most scholarly and lyrically gifted rappers in hip hop today, a true lexicomane, and in general is just way too slept on.

As part of Armand Hammer, Billy Woods is a bit of a Blue Oni to Elucid’s Red, more often taking to a slightly more reserved and introspective delivery, where Elucid often spits rhymes with a more brazen appetite. Regardless, both of them can really tear up a mic and dish out some very intellectual, brute force lyricism.

I was a big fan of Armand Hammer’s ferocious and highly political 2020 LP Shrines, less so of their collaboration with The Alchemist on their 2021 LP Haram. Going into my first Woods solo record with an entirely different lead producer, I didn’t really know what to expect. Fortunately, I was blown away.

Billy Wood’s latest record Aethiopes is a mix of smoldering images of violence and poverty, ideological subversion of the systems of power and post-colonialism, and a raw, cold, venomous, and avant-garde production style courtesy of his collaborations with producer Preservation. This is the sound of a seasoned veteran from the underground showing everyone else how it’s done, creating his own entirely contained world of bleak and labyrinthine storytelling.

The second track “No Hard Feelings” really sets the stage for this record, with strange horns that evoke air raid sirens. My mind’s eye immediately visualizes cracked concrete and flickering street lights. On just this one track alone, Woods addresses the relationship between poverty and addiction, personal guilt in the face of other’s misfortune, and the Global North’s ongoing exploitation of African peoples and their continent. Woods’ highly animated and severe expression feels like something really critical and dire is about to happen, as if the record itself is going to cause an earth-shattering event. One hell of a track, and one of the three or four very best songs of the year.

The uproar is silenced immediately with “Wharves”, a sinister and invasive little track of rippling beats and a disquieting gamelan melody. Woods describes vivid, beastly imagery of cannibalism, mirroring how the powerful cannibalize the poor and the marginalized.

“Sauvage” is a paranoia-inducing, unsolved puzzle of a hip hop track, with a minimalist beat of disparate sound effects brought together like some sort of auditory code. I feel like this is the kind of beat that is incredibly hard to pull off correctly, even more so rap over. Likewise, this track astounded me the first time I heard it. Experimental rap done masterfully.

“NYNEX” is absolute madness from start to finish. The beat stutters and clucks, and is what I imagine the last foundation of sanity in your mind snapping under the pressure of society would sound like. Excellent features all around including Denmark Vessey and Armand Hammer’s own second half Elucid, but it’s Quelle Chris who really steals the show here with the last verse. “That’s no cap all caps at the same time” is a very witty line.

The sense of menace continues with “Heavy Water”, featuring El-P and Breeze Brewin on top of some very old-school turntablism, and a jazzy beat right out of a mafia movie.

The record closes with the ghostly sorrow of “Smith + Crosses”, a mournful piece that reflects on the legacy of anti-black colonial violence and the slave trade, and how it continues to manifest in the modern world. It is a bitter ending that’s befitting for a record that explores such uncensored ugliness in both our past and present.

I feel like this will be a grower as I continue to digest this project. It is immensely dense lyrically and production wise, and some of it still confounds me and is not as immediate as the other tracks, but then I feel that my feelings are definitely subject to positive change (possible future 10/10?).

But even as it is right now, this is one of my absolute favourite records of the year. Aethiopes is a highly intellectual and mind-bending piece of art that was so obviously crafted with great care in a way few records are. Billy Woods has no competition in the rap game right now, because he is doing his own singular, incredibly profound thing.

9/10

Highlights: “No Hard Feelings”, “NYNEX”, “Sauvage”, “Wharves”, “Smith + Cross”, “Heavy Water”, “Protoevangelium”

[musicmakesyousmart]

billy woods - Aethiopes

BackwoodzStudioz

2022