1. It seems my ongoing frustrations over the state of U.S. Hip-hop has made me miss Shabazz Palaces debut `Black Up', originally released in 2011. Shabazz Palaces is masterminded by the media-shy Palaceer Lazaro, more commonly known as Ishmael 'Butterfly' Butler of 90′s New York hip-hop crew Digable Planets. `Black Up' is the first hip hop album ever to be released on legendary grunge label Sub.
2. View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 2011 Vinyl release of Black Up on Discogs.

• Shabazz Palaces Discography
• Shabazz Palaces Merch
• Shabazz Palaces Bandcamp

Shabazz Palaces. From $10.00 Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star. Shabazz Palaces. From $10.00 Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines. Shabazz Palaces. From $10.00 Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines (Illustrated Album) Shabazz Palaces. Regular price $25.00 Lese Majesty.

Black Up is the debut studio album by American hip hop duo Shabazz Palaces. It was released on June 28, 2011 in the United States on Sub Pop. The album was produced by Knife Knights at Gunbeat Serenade Studio in Outplace Palacelands.'^[2]

Reception[edit]

Critical reception[edit]

Black Up received widespread critical acclaim; many commented on the experimental song structures and intricate lyricism. Review aggregator Metacritic gave the album a normalised rating of 83 out of 100, based on reviews from 36 critics, indicating 'universal acclaim'.^[4] Metacritic included Black Up in its 'Midyear Report: The Best Music of 2011 So Far.'^[15]

In his review for MSN Music, music critic Robert Christgau said that, misleading titles notwithstanding, the album 'improves mightily when the volume is high enough to break the beats into components so they're impossible to ignore.'^[10]Jon Pareles, writing in The New York Times, viewed the album as proof that hip hop 'still has an audacious progressive fringe.'^[16]Kitty Empire of The Observer wrote that, although it is not game-changing, Black Up resonate with listeners in a way the conventional hip hop cannot because each track is 'lean and muscular, never losing sight of the fact that hip-hop should writhe inexorably forward.'^[17] In 2019, Pitchfork ranked Black Up at number 179 on their list of 'The 200 Best Albums of the 2010s'; cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib wrote: 'From great mystery exploded an album of impossible vision.'^[18]

Accolades[edit]

Shabazz Palaces Discography

Shabazz Palaces Merch

Track listing[edit]

Personnel[edit]

Shabazz Palaces

• Ishmael Butler (aka Palaceer Lazaro) – vocals
• Tendai Maraire – instrumentation

Additional personnel

• THEESatisfaction – guest vocals
• Blood – mixing
• Dumb Eyes – artwork
• Knife Knights – production

References[edit]

1. ^Wragg, Stephen (August 9, 2011). 'Shabazz Palaces: Black Up'. No Ripcord. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
2. ^'Sub Pop – Black Up'. Sub Pop. Retrieved November 5, 2011.
3. ^'Black Up by Shabazz Palaces reviews'. AnyDecentMusic?. Retrieved December 25, 2019.
4. ^ ^ab'Reviews for Black Up by Shabazz Palaces'. Metacritic. Retrieved November 5, 2011.
5. ^Lymangrover, Jason. 'Black Up – Shabazz Palaces'. AllMusic. Retrieved March 12, 2020.
6. ^Martins, Chris (June 28, 2011). 'Shabazz Palaces: Black Up'. The A.V. Club. Chicago. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
7. ^Wood, Mikael; Wete, Brad; Blauvelt, Christian; Anderson, Kyle (June 24, 2011). 'Albums: July 1, 2011'. Entertainment Weekly. New York. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
8. ^Andrews, Charlotte Richardson (June 24, 2011). 'Shabazz Palaces: Black Up – review'. The Guardian. London. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
9. ^Weiss, Jeff (June 20, 2011). 'Album Review: Shabazz Palaces' 'Black Up''. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
10. ^ ^abChristgau, Robert (July 12, 2011). 'Shabazz Palaces/Street Sweeper Social Club'. MSN Music. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
11. ^Elan, Priya (June 21, 2011). 'Album Review: Shabazz Palaces – 'Black Up''. NME. London. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
12. ^Grandy, Eric (June 27, 2011). 'Shabazz Palaces: Black Up'. Pitchfork. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
13. ^Dolan, Jon (August 15, 2011). 'Black Up'. Rolling Stone. New York. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
14. ^Reeves, Mosi (June 28, 2011). 'Shabazz Palaces, 'Black Up' (Sub Pop)'. Spin. New York. Archived from the original on July 4, 2011. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
15. ^https://www.metacritic.com/feature/best-music-of-2011-so-far
16. ^Pareles, Jon (July 3, 2011). 'Industrial Hip-Hop And Bouncy Sociopathy'. The New York Times. p. AR14. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
17. ^Empire, Kitty (July 2, 2011). 'Shabazz Palaces: Black Up – review'. The Observer. London. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
18. ^'The 200 Best Albums of the 2010s'. Pitchfork. October 8, 2019. Retrieved October 9, 2019.
19. ^'MOJO's Top 50 Albums Of 2011'. Stereogum. December 2, 2011. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
20. ^Popmatters Staff. 'The 75 Best Albums of 2011'. Popmatters. Retrieved May 5, 2013.
21. ^Amanda Petrusich. 'Staff Lists: The Top 50 Albums of 2011'. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
22. ^'The 200 Best Albums of the 2010s'. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved October 9, 2019.
23. ^Ivan Rt. 'The Top 25 Hip Hop Albums of 2011'. Hip Hop Is Read. Retrieved December 31, 2011.
24. ^Epitonic Staff. 'Epitonic's Top 40 Albums of 2011'. Epitonic. Retrieved February 9, 2012.
25. ^Chris. 'contributor list: Top 30 Albums of 2011'. gorillavsbear. Retrieved December 5, 2011.
26. ^Chris. 'Gorilla vs. Bear's Albums of the Decade: 2010-2019'. gorillavsbear. Retrieved October 9, 2019.
27. ^Staff. 'best music of 2011: Prefix's Top 50 Albums Of 2011'. Prefixmag. Retrieved December 12, 2011.
28. ^Andrew Matson. 'best pop music of 2011: Best pop music 2011: Seattle and beyond'. The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on December 31, 2011. Retrieved December 24, 2011.
29. ^David Reyneke. 'Top 15 Albums of 2011'. Potholes In My Blog. Retrieved January 4, 2012.
30. ^Clayton Purdom. 'Top 50 Albums of 2011'. Cokemachineglow. Archived from the original on July 24, 2012. Retrieved January 4, 2012.

External links[edit]

Shabazz Palaces Bandcamp

• Black Up at Discogs (list of releases)

The first thing that attracted me to Shabazz Palaces’s album Black Up was that it was a hip-hop release on Sub Pop. I remember the punt they took with the whispering country of Iron & Wine’s The Creek That Drank the Cradle, a beautiful album and completely at odds with their legendary roster. Black Up was bound to be something special, something unpredictable. It is certainly both of these things.

I had hoped to write a review of Black Up well before now. It has, after all, been streaming for weeks in its entirety on YouTube. But my biggest obstacle was the loss of my Grado headphones in the February earthquake. Listening to this album on Blackberry earphones in a car with a Discman is not a recommendation I am prepared to make. Black Up demands time and space. It also demands an old-fashioned, physical copy. Therein lie three important clues. The velvet sleeve is black and flecked with gold like a night sky: this is dark, tactile music. The disc itself is inside a red pocket which has a semi-robotic, African mask on one side and galactic hieroglyphs on the other: this is music from a tribe of aliens. Then there are the song titles - ‘A Treatease Dedicated to the Avian Airess from North-East Nubis (1000 Questions, 1 Answer): these aliens are incomprehensible and mad. Stand up Palaceer Lazaro - aka Ishmael Butler aka Butterfly from 90s rap-trio, Digable Planets - is the reluctant front-man for Shabazz Palaces. Interviews are rare, and the identities of the rest of the tribe are unknown.

On Father’s Day, I shooed my own tribe outside, turned Black Up loud and sat down. I needed to sit down: Black Up is short but exhausting. The subterranean bass is the first thing that strikes you – literally - then as the 36 minutes unwind, the listener is lashed with soul, funk, jazz, Eastern slashes and ancient African percussion. It is difficult to tell where one track ends and the next begins; it is an album and, as such, will evade any playlist dissection. Equally, Black Up will be lost on any listeners who require a thread of consistency or logic to lead through them through such a labyrinth. This is for listeners who are more than happy to remain lost.

While Shabazz Palaces, perhaps admirably, take great pains to avoid any taint of commercialism and popularity, their stance presents a double-edged scimitar. The song titles and lyrics keep their distance: there are snatches of love, politics and vitriol, but no hits. Second track, ‘An Echo from the Hosts That Profess Infinitum’ with its ghostly female backing vocals is the only track that comes close to being a single. The album closes appropriately with ‘Swerve…The Reeping…’. Shabazz Palaces try to shake any followers as the track switches back and forth between beats that crunch and fizz, soulful vocals and African drums. The method in their cosmic madness, however, was revealed on ‘Are You…Can You…Were You? (Felt)’ when Lazaro repeats, ‘It’s a feeling’. Shabazz Palaces wields music that is freed from A&R, egos and cliché. Analysis is pointless.

Some will scoff. Sub Pop? The arthritic ‘real deal’ rap fan might see this as hip-hop for indie white boys. In Blogland, blow-hards dismiss punters who include a ‘token’ black record on their precious end-of-year lists. Mos Def’s Ecstatic, Kanye West’s My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy, Why?’s Alopecia and OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/Love Below made many such lists. They were some of the best albums of the last decade in any genre, precisely because they were not limited by genre. Despite lacking the bangers of these classics, Black Up is black gold: it is rich, divisive and elusive.