the thread where ilxors find out who billy woods is

Liked Church well enough but now listening to aethiopes and finding it pretty electrifying, can see why it got such plaudits, and can also see what vc means by his ability to latch onto different aspects of these (excellent and varied) beats

who's billy woods??

j/k he rules

wau @ Remorseless

feel like you'd really like paraffin

Noted ty! Will listen tomorrow

He packs those words in

just continues to elevate

Just grabbed the wax of this! Had no idea he had a new one with Kenny coming out until this week.

I can’t afford his wax lol

same. wish i'd got on this one earlier.

I don't know why he doesn't press more. His albums are all gong for hundreds on discogs nowadays and even Maps is limited to 3k... wtf its found money dude

His albums are all gong for hundreds on discogs nowadays

this is pretty common practice in underground hip hop now, the whole sneaker culture rare thing, i guess maybe nipsey hussle and roc marciano started it?

i'd bet they "sell out" but keep some around to parse out on ebay and discogs over time for big bucks

this is pretty common practice in underground hip hop now, the whole sneaker culture rare thing, i guess maybe nipsey hussle and roc marciano started it?

yeah i think it was nipsey who started it. mach-hommy also sold some of his albums at super-premium prices (i think he sold one album for $444.44)

oh yeah mach too when he was more on that mystery man shit

roc usually holds his new albums off streaming for a couple weeks and sells downloads for like $30

Anybody seen Woods & Segal live? I see they’re doing some US and Europe gigs .

I’m fine with this practice tbh, get paid

Anybody seen Woods & Segal live? I see they’re doing some US and Europe gigs

He's hitting up SF this weekend. I'm totally hitting this show up

I don't know why he doesn't press more. His albums are all gong for hundreds on discogs nowadays and even Maps is limited to 3k... wtf its found money dude

I asked him about this when i interviewed him last month, he said he's not purposefully trying to limit production, but that given the label almost collapsed entirely a decade ago he's careful about not pressing too much, etc. said that he's trying to expand production, that the amount of deluxe editions of Maps was equal to the entire print run of Hiding Places, so he's trying to match the pace of his notoriety. I dunno, I still reckon he could repress stuff and not make it so collector scummy, but he didn't seem to be scamming the fans but genuinely leery of overinvesting in a print-run and losing out financially on it. The guy has been at this a long time, and for at least the first decade it was a slog with no reward.

Anyway I wish he'd repress his old records at a price I could afford and even the copy of Maps I preordered was more than I'd usually pay for a single LP but it is easily the best record I've heard this year and I want to support what he does.

As someone running a micro label, the line between "wow, that sold out already?" and "fuck, I'm gonna be sitting on these forever" can be shockingly thin...and hard to predict. It's better to err on the side of caution.

i believe that

xp That's a fantastic answer and understandable. Also appreciate you asking that directly to him during an interview! I suppose his notoriety has only started to truly ascend the last few years. I might have overestimated his stature and sales when he dropped Known Unknowns.

I mean tbh I was more asking on behalf of me the record collector than me the journalist, but I did think it was interesting that his records are so hard to find (I was 3% asking in the hope he'd be like "You haven't got a copy of Aethiopes? I think I may have a spare one somewhere here...", though it was a phoner so that wouldn't have been much help). But it was good for the story because he started to discuss how, post Cape Verde and the crash that almost destroyed the label and ended his career, one of the changes he made was to ditch distributors and sell directly to the audience. So I think in his head that's lodged as the thing he did that helped keep his head above water, that led to his current fame. On some level I don't really want to judge any independent record label what they do to keep the lights on in the streaming/mp3 era, and I do think it's worth noting that, of that late 90s/early 00s NY hip-hop underground moment, Backwoodz is one of the few labels I can think of that's still going and indeed thriving. Rawkus obviously died quickly, Fondle Em and Subverse were short-lived, even Def Jux crashed eventually - I remember El-P telling me that ended in a pretty tough way, even though it had been a flourishing label only a short time before. The game changed big-time around 2010 - you can understand why billy's trying to play a smart, long game.

finally got around to this. unsurprisingly great. probably his most accessible project yet? lots of incredible moments, a few couplets that floored me, including: "gazpacho on the veranda, trust me I know it's hot in the fields/jimmy wopo draped over his steering wheel." sheesh.

the one part that i didn't love was danny brown's verse, love the guy but felt like he was on a different wavelength.

oh jeez i didn't catch the jimmy wopo line :(

Definitely feels like his most accessible yet. I actually LOVED the Danny brown verse, and he has a spectacular turn on the new Kassa Overall LP as well.

upcoming dc gig in little 150 or so venue sold out quick

Yeah I agree that Maps might be his most accessible yet. This guy becoming my favourite rapper of all time. I havent even delved into his early stuff.

it never occurred to me until listening to this album but touring by yourself sounds like hell

Yep, many Maps lyrics really do convey the slowness of downtime and wishing to be home with loved ones aspect of touring solo well.

But I like how combines a reference to an old historical battle in Viet Nam with his food references--

“Baby Steps”
Dien Bien Phu, my opps pass each other coming and leaving
My phở steaming
Oxtail and lemongrass, steak still bleeding
Cocktails and cake tiers, it's always wedding season

such a foodie record

Finally got around to this record and it's great of course. Since the production is a big part of it, I'd suggest people check out these R.A.P. Ferreira (fka milo) records that Kenny Segal also produced all of, in a similar mode:

https://afrolab9000.bandcamp.com/album/purple-moonlight-pages

https://afrolab9000.bandcamp.com/album/who-told-you-to-think

it never occurred to me until listening to this album but touring by yourself sounds like hell

Yeah during his SF set, he shared an anecdote about flying out of LAX, how security wanted to look at his weed (was traveling with a few grams of flowers), and a bunch of security with weapons approached him, but ultimately didn't do anything and he made his flight. Joked how it was very close to being a Kenny solo show.

R.A.P. Ferreira (fka milo)

Whoa!! was just thinking about this dude - I loved Toothpaste Suburb and So the Flies Don't Come. Didn't realize Kenny wrote the beats of the latter!

Also didn't know he was still active. Def have some catching up to do, so thanks, Jordan!

Saw Billy woods and Kenny earlier tonight in DC. Good show . Lots of passion and emotion in his delivery. In between songs he reminisced about living in Dc — writing rhymes in Malcolm X Park, cutting grass to make money.

Oh, due to marketing and location of the gig at a small rock club that rarely has rap, it was the least diverse rap show audience in DC I think ( white ) me has been in ; with 96% of crowd white like me and the DJ

cutting grass to make money.

He raps about that on the new one iirc

Saw him and Segal last night Minneapolis, at a venue I had never been to or frankly even heard of before, so it was a pretty small crowd, but a great, great show, they played nearly 90 minutes

Maps sinks its teeth in slowly eh

incredibly cool to have a great rap record be overwhelmingly a slice-of-life rumination

probably loads of examples of that but it feels particularly true of this one

final verse of babylon by bus straight into first verse of year zero is unfair

He's playing at Big Ears Festival next year. See you in the pit?

music festival lineups are certainly one thing the US has the UK licked in

Ehh. Not sure about that. We have plenty of shit festival lineups. A few that are still actually curated. It's probably just a numbers game relative to population.

yeah but I looked up the Big Ears lineup and was all like 'we have nothing even a fifth as good as that here'

Just go to Le Guess Who. He'll be there.

the forthcoming Armand Hammer record is excellent, dizzying stuff. Not as approachable as Maps, a pretty pointed headfuck actually, but really worth getting deep into.

It's on Fat Possum, which I thought might mean the vinyl was a bit more affordable, but Juno's preorder price is £54??

somehow have not yet listened to an Armand Hammer album

...despite promising to ten months ago, oops lol

Will amend presently

Fuck this goes kind of insane right

Would say that Maps slightly edges it for how strongly it works as a full album, and how it ends, but Paraffin reaches insane intensity levels through the middle

fuck this is amazing

new armand hammer is typically great. billy and elucid bring out each other’s competitive side, and while billy still does his 1000 year stare thing in his rhymes, there’s still a sense that they’re trying to make each other laugh

white women with pepper spray in their purse interpolating beyonce

Don't invite me to your house, ask me to remove my shoes and your floors ain't clean

yes that line stuck with me too

a solid morning listen

livin the dream i walked out of denny's like it was ruth chris, grabbin toothpicks

really hoped this being on another label might mean the vinyl wasn't £££ but