Analysis from another blog

Shabazz Palaces: Remystifying Cool

(unmissable) interview

utah's city weekly magazine just published this fantastic interview with ish by austen diamond. it gives us as great a glimpse into his creative process as we've gotten so far and he himself also lays out why his poetry has the impressionistic, collage quality that has mesmerised listeners for the last twenty years. click here to read it in its original home or read below for the cut n pasted words.
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Shabazz Palaces

Ishmael Butler: All questions, no answers

Some influences: Alain LeRoy Locke, Nikki Giovanni, James Baldwin, Last Poets

By Austen Diamond

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass,” wrote Anton Chekhov.

Although removed by more than 100 years, Ishmael Butler (aka Palaceer Lazaro) epitomizes the Russian existential writer’s show-don’t-tell style—the essence of this quote—and his disregard for traditional story structure. Chekhov also believed that what is obligatory of an artist is not to provide answers, but to properly pose questions.

In this vein, Butler, the rhyming half of Seattle’s Shabazz Palaces, pushes the boundaries of storytelling in hip-hop. First, there was the band members’ anonymity—virtually unheard of within a genre of celebrity names—during the first two EP releases, allowing merit alone to gain notoriety without relying on the successes of Butler’s previous group, Digable Planets.
Butler also offers mysterious, semi-cryptic titles, like “An Echo From the Hosts That Profess Infinitum” and “Endeavors for Never (The Last Time We Spoke You Said You Were not Here. I Saw You Though.)” from the critically acclaimed 2011 release Black Up.

Each song shows its own “glint of light on broken glass” in a smattering of vignettes written seemingly as stream of consciousness. Butler would argue that these several-lines-long scenes sewn together are the most realistic approach to penning a narrative.

“A film or book is a nonrealistic view of life,” says Butler, who then describes a fictional scenario of a couple cyclically falling in and out of love. “It seems abstract [as it’s happening]. You can pick out those parts and then, later, put it in line [for a story]. But that’s not the way life goes; it’s not the way you hear, think, feel.

“I’m trying to reflect what’s happening to me and the world more realistically than sitting down and filtering out a linear story,” says Butler, whose songs, rich in imagery, allow open interpretation, much like a work of non-narrative contemporary film art. It poses questions and gives nary an answer. For example, “Are you ... Can you ... Were you? (Felt)” muses on the illusion of time, the problem with materialism, the adoption of television over literature, the struggles of African-Americans and so on.

Also within that song are clues to Butler’s writing processes: “Aw, dude/ The spicier the food/ When you chew, fuck their rules/ It’s a feeling.” Furthermore, as he speaks via phone from his home, the way he describes his creative process isn’t dissimilar to how a medium would describe how they channel a deity from another realm.

“When I’m making music, I don’t feel like I’m doing something, as much as I feel like something is happening to me,” Butler says.

The environment has to be perfect—the lights dimmed, the proper tools put in place and Butler relaxed and calm. And then “it” just comes. He has difficulty (or maybe it’s reluctance) describing the process further, but gives the allusion of it being meditative—hypnotic even.

Butler doesn’t think too much—about the lyrics or the industrial, minimalistic beats that he produces with Tendai “Baba” Maraire. “I don’t necessarily like all the sounds or the rhymes [that come out], but I believe in them,” he says. “[It’s like] you’re spiraling up or down or to the side. But when your instincts come, that’s where it’s at.”

Yet it’s not all from a higher power; there is responsibility on his end, be it culling sources of inspiration or habitually jotting down lyrical sketches. He cites Harlem Renaissance poets—like Nikki Giovanni, Alain LeRoy Locke, James Baldwin and, especially, The Last Poets—as shaping his worldview and opening his eyes to wordplay and the power of language. These were tradition-challenging writers whose fresh and clever approach was derived from their urban environment. Butler is doing just that now. His work is not derivative of these cats, just informed.

“Everything is born of something else,” Butler says. On his phone, there are roughly 2,500 recorded notes—phrases, sketches, rhymes—but he rarely goes back to them as a direct source material. “Everything that I record or think about or write down or whatever, even if you never see it again, it all leads to a song in one way or another.”

The whole process is magical, he says. “What’s happening is some divine stuff. You’re channeling and you feel like you’re plugged up into something. It’s hard to describe or chronicle. I’m not able to do it. I’m always amazed when cats can do that ... maybe when I’m older [I will be able to].”

It’s admirable to deal in the currency of mystery, though. After all, “It’s a feeling.”
Even if Butler could describe his creative process, he probably wouldn’t—that’s not his ethos. He shows glints of light on the broken glass of his fractured storytelling, and the listerner can extrapolate meaning. Butler’s job isn’t to provide answers, it’s to ask questions. 


SHABAZZ PALACES
w/ Dumb Luck, Ruddy CarpelThe Urban Lounge, 241 S. 500 EastMonday, Sept. 10, 9 p.m.$12ShabazzPalaces.com

some good writing on shabazz:

http://thefiddleback.com/issue-items/the-rebirth-of-slick-shabazz-palaces-live

apologies for the lack of updates, ishmaelites.

musicians and their masks

[via untitled]

seattleite andrew matson writes for npr on this subject, including on shabazz and words from maikoyo alley-barnes.

check it out here.

Tour Bus Notes

sp affiliate larry mizell jr gives us the scoop from the shabazz palaces bus plus some classic music

Roadtrip Funk

Baba Maraire

Great piece of SP's other half by that writer Zwickel (who wrote that great feature on Ish for city arts magazine). Trust me you want Tendai's LP, I have it and it's super. Here's the piece:

Baba Maraire: Shabazz Palaces' Other Half

Baba Maraire: Wona Baba Maraire by hearth_music

SP Feature in City Arts

A while ago I was contacted by one of the followers of this web log, thus 'an Ishmaelite', a writer named Jonathan Zwickel who wanted to interview me as part of the background research he was doing for a feature on Shabazz for City Arts magazine. The feature has just been published and it's probably set a new benchmark in terms of writing on Shabazz, and is one of the best things I've read on Ish generally. Nuff respect due JZ. The fact that he went the extra mile by talking to his high-school basketball coach, checking out the yearbook, talking to about twenty people, these are all things one would normally expect for a biography as opposed to a magazine article. But it's right here in the new issue of City Arts. Now don't be put off by the uninspired cover design - the article is a gem. The quote chosen from myself was included unaltered as I think were all of the quotes, letting everyone speak for themselves which I'm a big fan of. I wouldn't have included all the personal info about myself but that's a minor quibble. Reading that I'm 31 reminds me that the next time I read about myself it has to be for my own artistic accomplishments (as self-important as that phrase sounds). Anyway, it's just a joy to read and nice to see someone really giving the respect SP deserves. When I was 14 I knew that Ish's music came from a place unparallelled in specialness. Like Doug Collins said of Michael Jordan: "He's so good he's literally embarrassing the league", that's exactly how I felt about Digable and all his subsequent projects. But people are slow to catch on and it's only now almost twenty years later that I have the satisfaction of seeing the wider public waking up to one of the most under-appreciated voices in art. This article will contribute to that.

Shabazz Palaces by Jonathan Zwickel (City Arts Magazine)

A Portrait of Seattle

The photo above is by Kyle Johnson for his Portraits of Seattle project. The other photo (Lazaro solo) is featured here along with a great little (and I mean little) interview by Andrew Matson at the bottom of the page.



In other news, former Cherrywine guitarist Bubba Jones has recently posted the following on his website:

The new Shabazz is Erik Blood certified "in the can." Are we up for another Grammy?!!!!!!!

You know, though seems we've been awaiting the new songs for so long, when they hit us we will in no wise be prepared. Excitement. I miss it, that feeling of looking forward to a new release...Ish said in the Cherrywine days that excitement is anticipation with certainty. Now there are very few releases that get me excited. A new Shabazz Palaces record? My feelings are thankfulness, with the knowledge that we don't fully deserve such a blessing. Knowing I'll be revived. A good time to reread my main man Yoshi's ode to Shabazz.

And top-left coasters don't forget: SP @ Neumos, Thursday 17.2.11

Sealife

A Web Trawl unearthing a variety of tributes to Shabazz Palaces from the digital realm.

The New Confusion introduces SP to its readers.

Gorilla vs Bear puts Lazaro's CDs at number 3 in its Top 20 of 2010 - they must really like it (since it was released in 2009)

Cool Russian blog Guerilla presents a lengthy feature on SP in historical context for the cyrilically fluent. Google translate however delivers poetical truths like "Shabazz is a short course in the ghetto etiquette and the program will survive in the slums, delivered in a dark box heartbreaking graymovyh riddimov and severe klepsov from the mid-80's."

Legends

(Artwork by Khalid at Muharraqi Studios.)

Matson on Music offers musings on myth and uncovers meanings of the lyric, "Aristotle down in Kingston" from 'Show Tonight'. Read here.

The Wire

The first piece on Shabazz in an international print publication! Lisa Blanning's short and sweet article for readers of respected 'modern music' magazine The Wire is a good read and ends with a jewel of truth.

Lisa Blanning, "Living in a Material World", The Wire (Dec 2010)

Essay from Sound on the Sound

Dear readers,

I present you with the first lengthy rumination on SP I've come across, hopefully the first of many. I agree with everything that Sound on the Sound's Josh writes, although I would say he over-emphasises SP's 'anti-System' stance, giving the impression of it being somewhat laboured and reactionary. I prefer to view them as simply being who they are, making the music they want to make, and only incidentally slaying all these false gods. He writes,

"Cognizant that rap has lost its way, Shabazz Palaces seem to have surfaced especially to remind us, and particularly those within the hip hop community itself, that the future isn’t buying pre-made beats to rhyme over between sips of cough syrup."

It's beautiful that people feel that SP has surfaced to remind the pop rap circus, but I doubt the musicians themselves think of it like that, or even particularly care for the pop side. Rather, an artist makes music simply because he can't help but do it, and an artist (particularly a poet, historically) also presents society with truth messages in a uniquely devastating way, but not as part of an overly-conscious plan. So SP does achieve all the things the article says they achieve, but that's just how they do their thing:

Survival.
With style.

Q: But your position is no stronger, and suggests that the music is not the result of labour, vision, and calculation but merely a happy by-product of intuition.
A: Yes, that is the weakness of my argument. Of course it's all conceived, planned and every beat and word is there for a reason. But if it's 'calculation' then it's a kind of 'instinctive calculation'. Ultimately that's someting personal to each artist, and not being a very artistic person myself I would like to hear what poetic people themselves have to say about this aspect of the creative process.

(Photograph by Renee McMahon)

We All Go

Kevin Capp offers a review of Shabazz Palaces hometown debut back in January, bringing out something of the feel of the night. He should note that the headgear in question was a turban, not a 'headscarf'; the latter are worn by women. In the future we can talk about the divine symbolism of the turban. I need a scanner to depict what a Sheikh from Timbuktu explained about that style of turban; it was fascinating.


San Franciscans were treated to a Digable Planets w/Camp Lo show on March 25th. They were backed by Daru Jones's band, and there's a fascinating video clip on You Tube showing the musicians rehearsing the songs. Real musicians. They run through 9th Wonder and Jettin' but best of all offer a sweet take on the beloved and majestic Black Ego. Listen to the bassline as the chords change. Unparalelled. Talking of stupendous musicians, what happened to the Cherrywine players??


The Seattle Times' music writer Andrew Matson has been doing sterling work spreading the word about SP for a good while now via his blog Matson on Music. Last week he appeared on KUOW 94.9FM and discussed We All Go. His interpretation of the song is totally different to mine, and that is part of the magic... like he said, everyone feels an intimate connection to this music, like it was meant just for them. I'm looking forward to discussing the songs in more detail. Matson's view of it being about everyone going to the club together was something that never occurred to me. I always heard it as a reminder of life's transience. Hopefully we can all bring our own insights to the table and draw out some of the treasures within the palaces.

Article

Excellent piece on SP by Dave Segal in Seattle's The Stranger newspaper: The Rise of Afro-Eccentricism