Stream: Shabazz Palaces, ‘Forerunner Foray’

Andrew Veeder on July 23rd, 2014

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The Seattle-based experimental hip-hop group Shabazz Palaces, led by Palacer Lazaro, neÃ© Ismael Butler, formerly Butterfly of the jazz-rap Digable Planets, released a pair of seven-track EPs in 2009 before signing to Sub Pop Records. After their 2011 debut album “Black Up,” they’re back with sophomore effort “Lese Majesty,” out next week, and it’s one of the most interesting hip-hop albums you’ll hear this year: a seven-suite, 18-track tapestry that weaves between retro and nuevo like it is one and the same. The stunning second track “Forerunner Foray” begins with stuttering echoed-synth blasts, a swirling tweety bird-like shimmer hovering above like an alarm, and gentle cymbal crashes, slowly filling out as a snippet from 1973’s pioneering album Hustler’s Convention takes the stage, like sampling the past over the sound of the future. And then the bass comes in, with percussive distorted blasts and multiple distinct percussion elements popping in and out four beats at time in symphony, as a melodic synth carousel duels with a sinister low end grumble, and Lazaro raps, “’92 and ’92 and ’92, we grindin’ through / I was there, you’re a square / Please do not compare / If I’m there, in the square, you should come and stare / Bring her too, learn a thing or twoÂ / How a king’ll do” – and then ends the verse by breaking into a female retro soul interlude – before the synth dives back in like the Delorean detour is back to the future. Your move, Kanye.

||| Stream: “Forerunner Foray”