Event

SHABAZZ PALACES

Palaceer Lazaro, the man at the center of the enigmatic Seattle avant-rap project Shabazz Palaces, is otherwise known as Ishmael "Butterfly" Butler, one third of the boho-rap trio Digable Planets and frontman of the alt-hip-hop group Cherrywine. (He's also the cousin of fellow Rising artist Gonjasufi.) But he'd prefer not to talk about any of that. In fact, he'd prefer not to talk at all.

Lazaro initially declined Pitchfork's interview request, replying that he'd prefer to read a writer's take on Shabazz Palaces' music rather than offer his own answers. He won't name any of the other people involved in the project. He wouldn't send us a photograph; instead, he requested that we run the graphic you see above. Shabazz Palaces have no MySpace page, and they self-released two albums into the ether last year on their website. They're a group happy to work in the shadows.

Lazaro downplays that sense of mystery, but it works well with the music. On tracks like the BNM'ed "32 leaves dipped in blackness making clouds forming altered carbon", Shabazz Palaces make a clanking, discordant form of rap much colder and harsher than anything Butler ever made with Digable Planets or Cherrywine. Drums hit at irregular intervals, John Carpenter synth-smears bubble up from nowhere, and tracks follow their own internal logic, voices tripping over and interrupting each other. But as heady and experimental as these tracks may be, they still work as straight-up headknock rap music, as visceral as anything on the new Young Jeezy mixtape. It's smart, tough music.