Ishmael Butler as soon as likened affect to a vortex. Time, he stated, doesn’t transfer linearly like an arrow, however “goes round like a whirlpool, the place issues are picked up and moved round however they could seem in the identical place that they appeared earlier or later.” He pointed to Lil B, who championed hip-hop fundamentals like freestyling and dancing across the identical time Butler and Tendai Maraire shaped Shabazz Palaces, for instance of this coiling chronology. But it surely applies to Butler as effectively. The futurism of Shabazz Palaces has all the time been interwoven with the previous and current, their songs scintillating tapestries of old-school shit discuss, proggy psychedelia, and melodic flossing. Robed in Rareness is draped on this multiplicity as Butler and a staff of shut collaborators swagger throughout eras of rap.
The seven-song file is the third Shabazz Palaces challenge with out Maraire, who left the group someday earlier than 2020’s The Don of Diamond Goals. The manufacturing, helmed totally by Butler, is icier and extra metallic with out Maraire’s rhythmic contact; the preparations don’t swell, contract, and glow as intensely as these on Lese Majesty or the Quazarz albums. However that muted palette suits the cool, nocturnal temper. Although there’s nonetheless loads of Shabazz Palaces’ signature chaos percolating inside the beats, from the distorted moans drifting by “Binoculars” to the spacey sound results stardusted throughout “Scarface Mace,” the music largely brings to thoughts the calm of a membership’s backroom. There’s a celebration taking place just a few toes away, however this specific crowd is completely satisfied to kick it in non-public.
Butler rolls deep, tapping options for all however one tune. Geechi Suede of Camp Lo, Colorado Springs’ O Finess, and Butler’s mysterious signee Lavarr the Starr, with whom he co-released an album in April, are among the many friends, their disparate kinds reflecting the music’s eclectic mixture of punchlines, flexes, and cosmology. Butler leads the pack, gamboling by his verses like a hurdler. “I’m in my easy part/The L’s, they L me like Cool J/How might I fugaze?/The gangsters they hear me and shoe gaze,” he raps on opener “Binoculars,” his voice compressed right into a fizzy warble. “Of the jiggy OGs, I’m the president,” he says with delight on “Woke Up in a Dream,” a collaboration together with his son Lil Tracy. Butler charmingly calls Tracy his “idol,” a nod to their familial bond, and to his multidirectional understanding of time.
He actually is a rap time traveler. There’s no parasitism or trend-chasing desperation to the lure hi-hats and Auto-Tune vocals on “Cinnamon Bun,” on which his cadences surprisingly evoke Father and Chavo. The haunted beat of “Scarface Mace” brings to thoughts the cinematic loops of Roc Marciano and Alchemist, and will simply slot right into a Griselda launch. I doubt these are acutely aware reference factors, although. Butler is a real lifer, the pursuit of latest sounds as intrinsic to his type as sounding fly. The benefit with which he shifts instructions and shuffles by time retains the album engrossing, although the visitor verses lag Butler by way of ability. Robed in Rareness is finally a much less important Shabazz Palaces launch, however there’s one thing becoming a couple of casually adventurous album by a vet dropping within the 12 months of hip-hop’s fiftieth birthday. Because the doomsayers look backward, Butler turns his gaze in every single place.
