........SEVEN HORRORS OF BABYLON
SCRATCHED IN THE PALM OFF A VAGABOND

this is easily one of the best albums of the year, but it's still a few levels below Rome

Disagree with that, but each to their own.

Kinda hard for me to rank AH joints now. Each is too fundamentally different.. Rome one of my most-listened ones tho

Also this, each are fundamentally different, and you cannot begin to consider legitimately ranking them until you've sunk equal time.

djbooth.net/features/2020-06-16-billy-woods-elucid-armand-hammer-shrines-interview

So glad they asked Armand Hammer about how they got all these features on the album. Lot of reviews have been downplayin the guests on here but I thought that was one of the most interesting things to see them bring to a new record. New York scene is so incredible right now.

Feel like the Moors in Spain, easy come, easy go, nobody tryna hear the poors complain

"August Fanon can produce every rappers album for the next 10 years... he's got a lot of beats. He was sending so many beats and they were all so good I just had to stop opening the emails"

Which is the song where woods is dancing on your grave in Timbs

It’s Scales

“It is what it is
Brutus slid the shiv between Julius' ribs
Two types of people in the world, kid, those who load the guns and those who dig
Rhetorical question: Can I live?
Found the place of your final resting, danced the jig
Fiddle under my chin
Pirouette spin in a pair of Timbs
Heard em on the stairs, pulled the pin
Either which way they coming in, might as well go for the win”

this writing

Amazing writer. And the way he mostly rhymes just one syllable is so interesting to me... like an actual poet

I read somewhere an a***ogy that Rome was the fire of a burning city and Paraffin was the dust settling. I feel like Shrines is the sun rising after it all

they mention it in podcast

So instead you get small, scrappy half-victories that wind up getting you through the day, but at what cost, especially when they wind up feeling undeserved - which is what you get in confronting systemic racism and broader societal inequality, because instead of making the big fix you get drifting half measures that don’t fuel the soul, and while you can find some small tokens to moments of success - shrines, if you will - what have they really driven beyond continuing a cycle of violence? But I like how the album ends on a tentative note of optimism, first showing a requirement for a subtle, internal growth and self-actualization, but then followed with where and how to enact real change that will get there beyond the moment while staying wary of those who’d betray the cause, which is the big reason I don’t find this album nearly as apocalyptic or forbidding as the last two Armand Hammer projects.

Getting into some throwback billy today on The Reavers

Hiding Places is so f***ing good

Its seriously special. His magnum opus imo

Never really got around to sitting down and checking this dude out properly. Currently on my first listen of hiding places

Word? Just on my first listen, didn’t know it was considered his best. It’s really really good! Was planning on checking out, Today I wrote nothing next

The way I look at it is it’s his most focused. It’s full of his longest songs, plus it’s one of his shortest projects, so it’s thematically way tighter. Also Spongebob, Spider Hole, and Red Dust are on it

Literally just finished it. Can’t believe I haven’t really checked for him before. He’s someone I’ve always meant to check out since his sound is the type I like. But this made me wanna check out the rest of his stuff. What would you say are his other essentials?