★★★★★
Shabazz Palaces came out of nowhere two years ago shrouded in mystery. They released two solid EPs, and generated buzz in their hometown Seattle with their live act, no small feat considering it's basically two dudes fiddling with a laptop. Finally it came out that the man behind Shabazz Palaces was Ishmael Butler, aka Butterfly from 90s jazz rap group Digable Planets. Evidently F...
- rapreviews.com
2012-03-15
★★★★★
The first thing that attracted me to Shabazz Palaces's album Black Up was that it was a hip-hop release on Sub Pop. I remember the punt they took with the whispering country of Iron & Wine's The Creek That Drank the Cradle, a beautiful album and completely at odds with their legendary roster. Black Up was bound to be something special, something unpredictable. It is certainly both of these things. I had hoped to write a review of Black Up well before now...
- www.undertheradar.co.nz
2011-09-12
★★★★★
In the Nineties rap trio Digable Planets, Ishmael "Butterfly" Butler typified hip-hop as a bright fantasy of Brooklyn brownstone stoops and hippiejazz vibing. Reborn as Palaceer Lazaro in Shabazz Palaces, the rapper still waxes poetic with the old boho bounce as he lounges in the club or decries the evils of American culture...
- www.rollingstone.com
2011-08-22
★★★★★
Ishmael "Butterfly" Butler. You may recognize the name and the band he once jammed with, 90s darlings Digable Planets, but after one listen to his new joint's debut release, for sure you will not recognize the sounds within. A Seattle collective who emerged from the fog and rain in 2009, the mysterious Shabazz lay waste to Digable's puffy air in favour of a harsher and more abstract hip-hop...
- hour.ca
2011-08-22
★★★★★
2011 has already seen a good deal of creative, forward-thinking hip-hop that is helping redefine our perceptions of the genre. I'm not just talking about the ubiquitous Odd Future collective, but also self-styled weirdo Lil B, avant-garde viscera from Death Grips, and hazy, gorgeous soundscapes from producer Clams Casino; it's becoming a more multidimensional genre...
- www.noripcord.com
2011-08-15
★★★★★
It's no secret that a sense of swaggering narcissism is as closely linked to hip-hop music as maudlin introspection probably is to rock. Whether or not that axiom holds any water in 2011 is up for debate, but so long as artists like Kanye West and Coldplay continue to make headway on the charts, bravado and earnestness respectively will remain the cited qualifiers of those who endorse one genre and dismiss the other...
- www.adequacy.net
2011-08-15
★★★★★
When's the last time you heard an album that was both familiar and refreshingly new? Buzz hip hop act Shabazz Palaces have just created exactly that. "An echo from the hosts that profess infinitum" is a perfectly haunting, amazing tune that picks up where Massive Attack really left off. No, it doesn't sound like Tricky...
- www.glidemagazine.com
2011-08-01
★★★★★
Ishmael Butler takes relaxation seriously--and smartly. He doesn't confuse it with indolence. The former leader of beloved early 90s hip hop trio Digable Planets now works under a new moniker, and an ethos not far removed from Blowout Comb, the 1994 album which sold less well than the Planets' debut and introduced a thicker, bottom-heavy sound. Listening to it was like driving down a busy street with the windows down and catching snatches of jazz and rap from storefronts or passing cars...
- thequietus.com
2011-08-01
★★★★★
Will the cultivated mystery around Shabazz Palaces work out as well for them as it has for the Weeknd? Since they've avoided doing any press, and don't give away any info in the liner notes, all we know for sure is that Shabazz is a project helmed by Ishmael "Butterfly" Butler of 90s jazz hip-hop legends Digable Planets, who's been trying (unsuccessfully) to rebrand himself as Palaceer Lazaro, and that they're signed to Sub Pop, a label best known for grunge...
- www.nowtoronto.com
2011-07-25
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