billy woods's album,
Golliwog, is earning a lot of positive press. I just saw this video the other night and it's really a worthy listen if you like jazzier spoken-word rap. There's also an MF Doom hook in there if that entices anybody. He was featured in the New York Times about a week ago. He's blowin' up, as they say.
This is high-level stuff. It's the sixth-rated album on Metacritic, if that helps. An 88. This track below is incredibly haunting, as is the album.
billy woods w/ Kenny Segal - "Born Alone"
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I need to give it another spin. I've seen the praise but it didn't grab me on first listen.
Cool. I totally get that that it didn't grab you. The other album I listen to of his,
Aethiopes, was one that took me a lot of listens and I did it for the featured artists at first. He has tracks where (and I'm kind of a fan and, like you, have heard all styles of rappers) the spoken word flow is too much. But when he hits (for me), he really hits. And my favorite tracks of his are often ones that he steals the feature away on other artists' stuff, or when another artist he features on his release steals the spotlight from him. Like this one below blows me away. El-P produces and Despot features (he is a friend of El-P and pops up in some weird places). When Despot sets to put stuff out there, it usually becomes an instant classic.
Check this one, from 2025 off of Golliwog. woods's part isn't necessarily pleasant (or promoting racial harmony, for that matter) but the song as a whole is just pretty dope (again, to me).
billy woods ft. Despot - "Corinthians"
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Also, check the "Christine" thread I started if you're interested. I think I linked another song from
Aethiopes that was just unreal to me in terms of both the subject matter of what woods is saying, the unreal feature guest of Mike Ladd, and the shift towards the end of the song in production. The whole thing is just . . . I can't recommend it enough even though I know it will fall flat with a lot of people.
eta* I'm also not sure about how I feel about
Golliwog as a whole. I think Aethiopes was the album that should have had praise showered upon it, but critics, I've found, are always an album too late with an artist and their assessment. It's not their fault, IMO. Things need time to settle into the cultural ether and only make sense if you have a fast-forward button on life and experience. Not an easy job.
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Don't let go the rope...hey hey hey! 
