Black Up

After two fine EPs, the experimental hip-hop project helmed by former Digable Planets leader Ishmael Butler steps out with a brilliant full-length debut.

Countless pop artists have attempted to reinvent themselves in the public eye, and many have failed miserably. Perhaps it was prescient, then, that Seattle’s Ishmael Butler called himself Butterfly nearly two decades ago, when he was the helium-voiced street shaman at the heart of Digable Planets. After 16 years of…

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Shabazz Palaces score out of the blocks with their debut album.

The work of an ex-member of Digable Planets, Sub Pop's first hip-hop album is cutting edge and cryptic, writes <strong>Kitty Empire</strong>

Black Up reveals Shabazz Palaces as an artist much more in line with the future, voicing his dissatisfaction by carving his own path.

<p>Sub Pop's first hip-hop band present a thrilling, space-age vision of the genre. By<strong> Charlotte Richardson Andrews</strong></p>

“With the neon in your blood/ You move to find your love,” Ishmael Butler (a.k.a. Palaceer Lazaro, and formerly Butterfly) rhymes on “Recollections of the Wraith,” the seventh of 10 tracks on Shabazz Palaces’ first full-length, Black Up.

Shabazz Palaces - Black Up review: Clear some space out, so we can space out.