2011's Black Up was the first full-length sonic move from Shabazz Palaces, and it remains a milestone of forward-looking hip-hop.
Black up: Like rich velvet hijabs or gold threaded abayas. Luxury as understood by the modest. Shabazz Palaces. If Bedouins herded beats instead of goats and settled in Seattle instead of the Atlas Mountains, this would be their album. Forward thinkers but nostalgic for a sparer time when ancient astronomers only recognized five planets. Hip hop. Black light uses electromagnetic radiation to eradicate microorganisms, but shabazz didn't come to kill a sound, just to shine their own incandescent lamp on this. Hear. Hard and clear. Fifty thousand years in the making. Honorable. -palaceer pink gators. Produced by Knife Knights. Plcrs at Gunbeat Serenade Studio in Outplace Palacelands. It was recorded and mixed in Lixx-alog by Blood.
Tracks
1 Free Press and Curl
2 An Echo from the Hosts That Profess Infinitum
3 Are You... Can You... Were You? (Felt)
4 A Treatease Dedicated to the Avian Airess from North East Nubis (1000 Questions, 1 Answer)
5 Youlogy
6 Endeavors for Never (The Last Time We Spoke You Said You Were Not Here. I Saw You Though.)
7 Recollections of the Wraith
8 The King's New Clothes Were Made By His Own Hands
9 Yeah You
10 Swerve... the Reeping of All That Is Worthwhile (Noir Not Withstanding)