Album review: Shabazz Palaces

For anyone despairing of the future of hip hop — a genre that seems profoundly terrified of innovation — the second album from Seattle duo Shabazz Palaces is reason for optimism.

Dense, mysterious, with grooves that slip in and out of earshot, Lese Majesty is like nothing you have heard before — indeed, it arguably challenges accepted concepts as to what does or does not constitute rap music.

Led by Ishmael Butler, a figure of brief notoriety with 1990s act, Digable Planets, Lese Majesty is reluctant to pander to the uncommitted listener — if you’re not on board, well, you know where the exit is. Assisted by younger rhymer, Tendai Maraire, opener ‘Dawn In Luxor’ kicks off in a fug of treated beats and droning noises; when Butler finally chimes in, he’s ranting more than rapping. Stranger yet is ‘Forerunner Foray’, coalescing in a swirl of samples, grinding grooves and a half-indecipherable vocal flow.

The album’s centre-piece is ‘Ishmael,’ a clanking, slowly uncoiling composition that features distorted crooning from Butler and jarring electro-tempos. It’s like listening to a Jay Z record as the world is ending.

It is hard to gauge how fans of conventional hip hop will respond to Lese Majesty — certainly, nobody is going to mistake it for the braggart outpourings of Snoop Dogg or Kanye West (not even Kanye’s supposedly experimental Yeezus LP). But while the project is unlikely to breach the mainstream, the hope must be that it will help inspire a generation of rappers to push their music in an increasingly challenging direction.

In that regard, Lese Majesty is more than simply an assemblage of songs — it is a call to arms.