New interview for your ears

This is a half-decent audio interview from a Lisobonian operation. Longer than the usual soundbite-length shit.

Ishmael Butler on Stress FM (Portugal)

Audio Interview

"Rap has become an amusement park but having too fixed an idea about the way things should be turns you into somewhat of a fanatic, and drives people away." Amen. Great insight on Ish's mindstate of declining to hate.

Kreative Kontrol Podcast with ISH

 

Kreative Kontrol - Ep. #138: Palaceer Lazaro of Shabazz Palaces

Digable on Hot 97 in '94

Digable rhyming on Hot 97 in 1994 with Fu-Schnickens & O.C.

new radio interview

yes i am sorry for being awol of late, ishmaelites... i've been sick, but on the way back now. still meaning to write up my evening with shabazz palaces when they came here to copenhagen a couple weeks ago, but for now here's an interview with liverpool student radio which is pretty cool

gil scott-heron radio doc

bbc radio are airing a radio documentary about gil scott-heron which features shabazz palaces, krs-one, and chuck d and others speaking about the great man. on sunday. more info here. for those of you not in the european union you will not be able to listen to it via bbc's website or later via iplayer (unless you have vpn) but i plan on recording it and posting it so its all good. in other good news, 2 weeks till shabazz come to copenhagen... gunbeats.com/prize/arsenals.html

in-theatre radio studio performance

a clean version of an echo with the verse from chuch: from a radio station in minneapolis called the current:

Performance & Interview @ Minnesota Public Radio

over 20 minutes of shabazz for your suddenly shiny spring evening. the songs are the treat: a reworking of 100 sph that they've called bad (but i was hoping for an MJ remix!) with some great contributions from tendai. an echo is similarly mashed up, this time with the vocals from chuch. recollections of the wraith closes proceedings. the interviewer, jade tittle, doesn't go very deep into the music, asking banal questions but can't criticize her - the music is just too future for a lot of people - and anyway her voice really is something to savour, but one can't be named jade tittle and not have a suitably sexy voice, now can one?

Performance & Interview @ Minnesota Public Radio

palaceer laz SPEAKETH

*sorry there are no spaces.. the new blogger interface is obviously fucked up but i'm working on it or i'll migrate* this is one of the best interviews with ish i've heard since the interviewer goes straight to the point: spirit. i'm glad someone asked him point blank what kind of meditation he does since i've been wondering that too. it's not surprising that he made his own style rather than following a set method. you have to listen to the audio embedded below since that's a whole different interview than the printed one. enjoy>

artwork by jacob wilson.

Divine Palace: MC of Shabazz Palaces talks funk, spirituality

By Daniel Means

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Album Review: Shabazz Palaces

Ishmael Butler has been redefining what it means to be cool since his days under the pseudonym Butterfly of the Grammy Award-winning hip-hop trio, Digable Planets. Now, reigning at the forefront of modern hip-hop as Palaceer Lazaro of Shabazz Palaces, his musical experiment acts to liberate a genre confined by the formulaic production of recent years. Dropping the profusely praised album Black Up in 2011, Palaceer along with multi-instrumentalist and finger piano master Tendai Maraire, have created a musical space between psychedelia and hip-hop so sonically dense that the two genres can’t help but gravitate towards a funky sound.

Palaceer touched down at Yoshi’s in San Francisco last Thursday, putting on a mind-bending show with psych-indie rockers Siddhartha and saxophonist David Boyce both opening. Palaces’ performance could be imagined as the musical product of putting an ancient tribal-drummer and a beat-generation poet into a swagged-out space shuttle blasting off for an inter-galactic voyage.

The dynamic duo filled the jazz bar with astronomical chimes, organic conga drumming and enigmatic verses all the while keeping a danceable groove. With live experimentation ranging from a cache of voice modulations to laser-sharp synth tones, I was surprised that Palaceer was able to simply keep a flow — just imagine the feat of a musician taking the experimental beats of someone like Flying Lotus, rapping over them, while keeping his breath (not to mention sanity).

Underneath the thick, atmospheric layers of sound, there is something at the core of the group’s music that fundamentally challenges the state of current hip-hop. Their music confidently echoes from a sonically distant realm, bringing listeners a distinct noise that unveils the potential of a genre. Recently, I had a chance to talk with the Palaceer himself, carrying a free-form conversation on divinity, ghosts and all things funky.

Daniel Means: So you’ve had several characters from Butterfly of Digable Planets to the current Palaceer Lazaro. Is there a different individual behind each of these personas and how do these name transitions change the way that you make art?

Ishmael Butler: There’s not a different individual behind them. It’s like, when you get up and let’s say you have a job interview, maybe you’re going to a party, maybe you’re going to a date. All of these things require a different self of yours, both internally and externally. Now, we go to great extents to dress up that self or at least get into that self, so I just go a step further to name that self. The name is just a part of it all. It doesn’t allow or influence anything, it’s more like it’s the name of what’s happening to me, the name of the things that I’m understanding about myself and that’s why I attach it to whatever’s going on musically or artistically in me at that time. You know what I mean?

DM: I feel that. I’m curious. In your opinion, what’s the funk?

IB: The funk? Well, it’s kind of a cool word in the sense that there is no definition. It’s what you make of it really, and by that what I mean is this: It has to do with rhythm, it has to do with meaning, it has to do with instinct, it has to do with your talent. It’s the way you see things, hear things and want to make music feel. It all has to do with your ability to bring that shit together into something that people will either like or not like or call funky or not funky. A lot of it has to do with you, but a lot of it has to do with what is thought of, after you do what you do, of what you’ve done.

DM: So, lets talk about Black Up, which you released last summer. In the song “Are you…Can you…Were you? (Felt)”, you repeat the line “It’s a feeling.” For you, what does it mean to actually feel, and is there a feeling that you aim for throughout the music that you make?

IB: I’m not sure what it really means. I feel like, the feeling of surprise, of a good a surprise — the feeling that you notice something that you didn’t know before and it becomes apparent to you and how it sinks in and how you deal with that and what it does to you is the feeling to me. It’s being able to kind of grasp onto something that you didn’t know prior to finding out about it. And that excitement is something that I always look forward to in life.

DM: In your music, you talk a lot about freedom. For you, what does it mean to be free?

IB: Well, it’s an abstract word, you know? It varies, I think that a lot of it is attached to your courage, your level of courage. Because there’s a lot of people in this world born into situations that don’t really offer a lot of freedom. Yet, we see often that people from situations like that do amazing things because they kind of carve out a meaning for freedom in their situation for themselves and pursue that and do amazing things. To me, it’s like the courage to understand who you are in whatever situation you’re in, and maximize what can happen in that situation both affecting yourself and affecting other people.

DM: Awesome. Back to Black Up. Many of the tracks like for example, “An Echo from the Hosts that Profess Infinitum,” they have a spooky echo that’s almost ghostly. In fact you even discuss ghosts in your lyrics. So, do you believe in ghosts?

IB: Yes.

DM: And how do they affect the way you make music?

IB: Just timelessness. Life is not something that begins and ends with the ability to go and buy something at the mall. There’s just realms. There’s realms that are existing on top of each other and we get caught up in this realm so much because we’re losing our spirituality and our humanity and our connection with nature, so we just ignore a lot of shit that’s going on around us. I try to pay attention to things as much as I can and have a conversation with the universe instead of just going through it numbly. There’s ghosts of all kinds, not just people. It’s infinite too. Things that deal with ghosts, they’re not really to be talked about. You experience them. You know what I mean? It’s kind of like between you and that experience really.

DM: You were just talking about how certain things are read. Do you believe in fate, do you believe in a divine presence?

IB: Yeah I do. I don’t think it’s shaped anything like we’ve been taught. It’s something that people can discover through observations of things other than themselves. We live in such an individualistic society where everybody’s trying to get to the bottom of themselves. But, I think that if you can observe and have respect for the things that you’re observing and have sort of a child-like curiosity in it — I think you’ll find divine. The way things are working, the mechanisms of humans in the world, it’s not difficult to see how amazing and divine it is … I just think we have to pay attention to different things, I don’t think its that deep.

DM: When was the last time that you found the divine?

IB: Well, to be honest with you man, I find it all the time. Like I’m sitting at the park and there are people walking by … it’s just always here.

view this interview in its original setting on the daily californian website.

2 new interviews

one with Beat.com.au (australia)

beat.com.au shabazz palaces interview

...and another from manchester's (uk)

ill communication radio show with nick costello:

Ill communication - show 8 / pt. 2 by Ill Communication on Mixcloud

Free New Track & Live UK Spot (best before end: 3/10/11) )

Sub Pop recently signed this funky fresh South African rapper called Spoek Mathombo, and are offering his first EP "put some red on it" (featuring a Shabazz Palaces remix with ish's trademark tasteful handclaps) as a free download for one week only so visit The Fader's website to get yours. The whole LP is class - the originals were produced by this Danish producer called CHLLNGR from my new home Copenhagen.


as part of their uk visit, sp also turned up at the bbc studios for lauren laverne's show on bbc 6 music (a radio station) where they performed live versions of free press and curl and are you... can you... were you.. felt interspersed with banal questions from the host. check it here, noting that if you're outside the uk you can't listen to the 10 minute sp clip but can always just listen to the whole 3 hour show and skip to the 1 hour 40 min mark. it's only available for 6 days longer.

Radio Documentary

KEXP 90.3 FM (Seattle, WA) had a series entitled "KEXP Documentaries: Hip Hip - The New Seattle Sound" and one of the episodes addressed Shabazz and includes an interview.

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.

Radio Appearance: Listen Up (do it now listen up)

The short but sweet 20 minute (not one hour as I expected) SP appearance on KEXP FM was quite delicious, nutritious, and downright vicious. You can hear it here via streaming and it's been uploaded onto You Tube here. Also, I recorded it and can send anyone the mp3 if they'd like to have it. Just ask.

Although it's billed as an interview as well as set, it's amusing to note the astounded even bewildered tone of the host, Mr Mizell Jr (above). He was definitely as blown away as us listeners by this. Indeed what is one to ask Ish regarding SP?! Best to sit back and enjoy the sounds; it'll be a few years at least before we're able to start to piece together the fragments of this sonic bomb blast.

Respect to KEXP, Larry Mizell Jr, and the Raindrop Hustla.

Radio Show

Shabazz Palaces will be on KEXP at 8pm pst tonight (Sunday 25/10/09) for a whole hour. Listen live: http://www.kexp.org/

My finger is poised at the record button, in case you miss it.