Live in Shanghai

I like the editing style here.

Shabazz Palaces LIVE from Daedalum Films on Vimeo.

lightning storm ~ moscow

please god let the first song be on the new album!!

live in chi-town

ooh listen to the 2nd verse. no compromise.  what's he saying for the chorus... "force live"?

MMJ x SP footage

wow this is BIG - finally, some very high quality footage of MMJ and Shabazz bringin down the greek theatre of berkeley california. after they sort out ish's mic he lets rip his verse from "home" by jake one, and shabazz blacks up the area. everyone was feeling this, and the crowd was immense. courtesy of frontline tv:

digable on soultrain in ninety-five

soultrain's bizarre format of getting acts to play live but then playing the recorded version over the top. the host's fearless banality. ladybug's answer to her question signalling the groups days were up. the really pretty spectacular dancing. interesting that jettin apparently was going to be the single, as this was originally aired in march ninety-five, well before blowout's autumn release.

pitchfork video

is it just me or is the resolution quality of this video more vivid than real life?!

live show review from philly

image via stmruss

read original here or read on:

======================

Ten Things We Saw and Learned at the Shabazz Palaces Show Last Night

By Beth Stollman

Many things happened in the world last night. For example, ten thousand freelance writers blew their brains out after submitting their taxes. We didn’t do that. We were at the Shabazz Palaces concert at The Blockley. A band opened for the Seattle rap project, but we don’t know who that band was. And there was a headlining band, but their name is too complicated for us to write this early in the morning. Here are 10 things we saw, heard and learned.

1. Philadelphian King Britt, who used to DJ for Shabazz boss Ishmael Butler a.k.a. Butterfly’s old group Digable Planets, was DJing when we walked in at about 9:30pm. He was kicking a Stereolab tune.

2. Make Major Moves ain’t a gossip rag, but there were some local music celebs in the building. We spotted South Philly rapper Lushlife, and Butler’s Digable Planets comrade Cee Knowledge a.k.a. Doodlebug. (We were hoping for an on-stage reunion, but that didn’t happen.) We also spotted some members of a very prestigious Philly rock band, but we don’t want to blow their covers. Let’s just say we saw members of the band “Woman Woman” enjoying the show. There were others, but we’re not saying who. You should’ve been there.

3. Butler a.k.a. Palaceer Lazaro was rapping and pushing buttons on a sampler and a Mac. He was joined onstage by Shabazz partner Tendai ‘Baba’ Maraire, who is the son of Zimbabwean mbira master Dumisani Maraire. Baba was kicking a mbira, a drum kit, some small percussion instruments and adding back-up vocals.

4. The duo doesn’t perform songs quite like the recorded versions you may be familiar with from the albums Shabazz Palaces, Of Light and Black Up. There’s an improvisational element, and the tunes are radically expanded, provided even more space to sprawl, lounge, linger, drift, meditate, elevate. Songs begin, vanish, merge into other songs, and then other songs, and then the song that began begins again. The experience is somewhat similar to Black Up’s “Are you… Can you… Were you..?” in which three movements develop across a single track. But this was different, as tracks unexpectedly evolved into other tracks. Tracks on tracks on tracks. It was dreamlike. Like a Terry Malick flick. Like too much Nyquil for breakfast.

5. Rap concerts are normally terrible if you go for the music and not for the party. This is what happens at about 85% of the ones we go to: a DJ plays the recorded version of a song and a rapper raps over it. But the DJ doesn’t just play the instrumental, s/he plays the recorded version with the vocals included. So the rapper is rapping over her/himself. It’s disgusting. It shows us that the rapper cannot rap live the way s/he does on wax. Lazaro doesn’t do this. He raps live. There’s no track playing in the back. The instrumentation–some samples, some acoustic, some electronic–is all happening live. And since, as mentioned above, there’s a spontaneous element introduced to the performance such that the songs structurally shift in unpredictable ways, that weak shit most rappers display is not even possible for Shabazz.

6. Many rap fans don’t dig Shabazz Palaces. Namely because the music is so goddamn strange. It doesn’t quite fit into the mold of Lex Luger maximalism or “Rack City” minimalism. It doesn’t sound like anything on rap radio. It’s out. And, as a consequence, Lazaro isn’t given the props he deserves on the mic. While meditating deeply on Lazaro’s lyrics during the performance, we were reminded of a comment Philly rapper Zilla Rocca made on music blog Passion Of The Weiss about him. “Ish is fucking gangster,” wrote Zilla. “You don’t have to like the music behind Shabazz Palaces, but if you write down Ish’s lyrics and put them over Rick Ross beats, you’d understand the slickness.” It’s true. Put Lazaro over a Luger trap-beat, and he’d sound harder than Gunplay. But we prefer him spitting over his own bizarre beats and textures, which sound much more interesting than all that radio rap shat.

7. Something we didn’t expect to happen happened a few times. Lazaro and Baba had worked out some synchronized dance moves, and every once in a while they’d clap and sway in unison.

8. See that photo up there? ^^ I took that. Holler at me if you wanna hire me to shoot your wedding.

9. One of the highlights of the roughly 35 minute set was “An echo from the hosts that profess infinitum.” Baba kicked an extended mbira jam, gradually building up a series of melodies above a heavy, but minimal, bass line. (Oh yeah, that reminds us, the bass was fucked at The Blockley. It sounded like a speaker blew pretty early in the night.)

10. Another banger was “Chuch” from Of Light. This is one of Shabazz’s hardest tunes. Lazaro rapped ferociously over Baba’s rhythms: “Ever since the ships came, we kicked slick game make name mistake the claim, and never ever ever tame, and stay way fresher than the ‘presser.” And what do they call that? “Survival with style,” goes the chorus. Think about it.

–Elliott Sharp wants you to follow him on Twitter @Elliott Sharp.

that unreleased track

great live footage from pittsburgh. "punk bitch was you there tonight?" who else can ask rhetorical questions involving the manipulation of linear time and make it sound so gangster i ask you

toronto footage

great crowd in sp's first toronto gig a few days ago. here they play "an echo from the hosts that profess infinitum", and as the audience goes crazy for what has become tendai's iconic mbira solo, it gives way to a spoken word reflection on trayvon martin's murder:

A funny thing happened on the way to the store,
Underneath a nice lush red, white and blue flag.
It gets clearer every day,
[the motto is]
Kill a nigga, and get away.

then it breaks into that white hot stone cold verse from "chuch". sound quality isn't bad actually, for a youtube clip, thanx to awesomeexcellence.

hairs on end

damn! you know it's real hiphop when the sharpness, poise and power of the the mc makes the hairs on you arm stand up. check this mash-up on "an echo from the hosts that profess infinitum" and "chuch" from the recent show in frisco... (phew. deep breath)

live studio performance

for the guardian newspaper (uk). shabazz been getting much love from the british press. barksdale corners w/ bronny on a breakaway:

tonight: miami

shabazz play miami tonight. someone made this cool poster with lyrics to that song "whats up" that they've been playing live. that's one of most incredible things i've ever heard and surely one of their top tracks... hopefully we'll get a studio version soon. here are 2 live versions of it. with the second video (the treasure island one), you have to forward to 3:15.

slumchella latest

the $3 holler. and.. dead prez will be joining shabazz in kenya!!

Footage from Berlin

Are you..? Can you...? Were You..? (Felt)

friday night

The Europe Tour w/thee satisfaction kicks off tonight at the jazz cafe, london. i'm going over for the birmingham show tomorrow night (friday 18th) at the HMV institute. any readers of this site going? get at me either at eaglessoaroilflows AT gmail.com or in the comments section below. so excited!!! peace> O

soaked in sex n bathed in light

lazaro surprises the fans at the sbtrkt show last night in seattle to sprinkle some shabazz flavour on the place for the last song "wildflower". wow... imagine being in the seattle crowd and getting a surprise like that, that's beautiful

new song

love this more melodic soulful direction

SLUMCHELLA

a magnificent project; ishmaelites blog will do its bit to support.

palaceer lazaro freestylin for berliners - allahu akbar

damn i wish they'd release a studio version of "allahu akbar"

a 30 minute tv show about s.p.

(above art From a Sudanese folk story-1993, first edition print. Illustrated by Hassan Ali Ahmad courtesy of Soorah)

Someone/thing called Noisey has made this excellent 30 minute documentary combining footage of the Black Up release shows in Seattle with interviews with the band and associates. The live version of Youlogy literally made the hairs stand up on my arms. Their website is really slow and it might take ages for anything to load so keep your swerve in control

NOISEY 093: SHABAZZ PALACES, SEATTLE