Fantastic Damage | Leftfield Hip Hop News & Events in Birmingham

Sick news… We just confirmed the incredible Shabazz Palaces!

Enigmatic Seattle avant-rap project Shabazz Palaces is headed up by Palaceer Lazaro, otherwise known as Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler, one third of the boho-rap trio Digable Planets and frontman of the alt-hip-hop group Cherrywine. One of Sub Pop’s most talked about new signings, Shabazz Palaces are shrouded in mystery – often refusing interview and photograph requests. This is a clanking, discordant form of rap much colder and harsher than anything Butler has done before. But as heady and experimental as these tracks may be, they still work as straight-up headknock rap music, as visceral as anything on the new Young Jeezy mixtape… Some of the most exploratory hip-hop we’ve heard in a long time, an enticing batch of fragmented raps and woozy, disorienting beats. “You could find precedents for this stuff– the amorphous wanderings of cLOUDDEAD, the jazz rap of the early 1990s– but this is largely on some sui generis shit: Nothing else out there sounds quite like Shabazz Palaces”.

“Butler’s track record and indicative of his status as a hip-hop elder, an MC with some well-earned gray in his goatee. And it’s deeply refreshing to hear an artist who exudes such depth and consideration” – Pitchfork, 8.8/10

“If there’s been a better album, hip-hop or not, out this year, I haven’t heard it.” – Prefix Magazine, 9.5/10

DATE: FRIDAY 18TH NOVEMBER | VENUE: HMV INSTITUTE
DOORS: 7PM | COST: £8.50adv
TICKETS: HMV Tickets

Check out this sick short film of theirs, ‘Belhaven Meridian’: