Shabazz Palaces - Glasgow. Live review

Shabazz Palaces, Art School, Glasgow. 8th Nov 2017

American experimental hip-hop duo Shabazz Palaces create albums that can appear opaque and intriguing, but performing live present a surprisingly dynamic sound. Ishmael Butler raps and works the electronic gadgetry whilst multi-instrumentalist Tendai "Baba" Maraire brings the energy with his live percussion. Last time I saw them in Glasgow was in a basement bar at the western end of Sauchiehall Street (can't remember which), but now they draw a bigger crowd on a Wednesday night at the Art School. 

The films projected onto the screen behind them hint at some of their influences; downtown streets, domestic scenes, Fela Kuti and Sun Ra all featuring. If you can imagine a shiny 1970s American car with Fela Kuti and Sun Ra blasting out from the 8 track, that gets you the flavour of Shabazz Palaces. Their latest albums featuring the character Quazarz comes closest to echoing Sun Ra's otherworldly ideas. You listen to the lyrics, feeling you have grasped the meaning, before it wanders away from you again. Their stories are of a black experience, but definitely at the prog-rock end of the hip-hop spectrum.

Shabazz Palaces at the Art School, Glasgow

The live show is tightly done, with one track sweeping into the next, the two performers in a constant dialogue of sound, and the live percussion just lifts it above the usual. The crowd were drawn in by the gripping show.

Energetic, confusing and intriguing. 

Shabazz Palaces, Glasgow, November 2014

Gig review - Shabazz Palaces, Nice 'N Sleazy, Glasgow, Nov 2014

It is over 2 years now since I last saw Shabazz Palaces live in Glasgow, and I was surprised then with how much I enjoyed it. There wasn't much audience interaction as they started their set and kept going for the next 90 minutes. To be perfectly honest there wasn't much audience either and I thought that their latest album, Lese Majesty, may have scared people away rather than brought in the crowds with its leftfield assault on conventional hip-hop. However it turns out I was wrong as instead of 20 people in the basement of a pub they had managed to fill Nice 'N' Sleazy this time around. Their current album is woozy, funky and as close to hip-hop as Miles Davis was to "jazz".

Shabazz Palaces are Ishmael Butler and Tendai Maraire, Seattle based musicians and much as I found when I had seen them before, they don't go in for chirpy audience banter but plough on with their set, which encompasses tracks from their current and previous albums. Whenever the audience showed signs on bopping up or down or starting to dance the beat melts away and we are off in a different direction. Always captivating though, they had the rapt attention of the full house for their 90 minutes set. 

Where they take their music next, who knows?

Shabazz Palaces, Glasgow, May 2012

I've never really made the effort to find out about hip hop, finding it all a bit homgeneous. However when Public Enemy were in Glasgow last year doing their "Fear of a Black Planet " tour I did go to see them as it is one of the few hip hop albums I've ever bought. They impressed me with their whole show - their political chat between songs, their live musicians and their choroegraphy.
I ended up at the Shabazz Palaces gig in the Art School in Glasgow on a Sunday night because basically I'd go to see anyone play live, but also because of Frankie Boyle and my brother in law. If you follow @FrankieBoyle on twitter you'll know that as well as being a comic-book geek, he likes his hip hop, and has instigated "hip hop Thursdays". When he was singing the praises of Shabazz Palaces, my brother in law, who does know his way around this music, recommended them to me as one of the best albums of last year. So I bought "Black Up" with its nice velour sleeve and have really enjoyed it. Really they are quite genre-defying and a lot of their sound is closer to jazz, with a lot of African beats in there too over a throbbing bass. And lo, a couple of weeks later these mysterious Seattle musicians are playing in Glasgow.

Before they were up Hector Bizerk were on, a Glaswegian MC (Louie) with Audrey on real drums. He's also picked up a guitarist along the way for playing some summer festivals, his mate tells me, and when he and Jen - the keyboard/ percussion/ small wooden frog player join them on stage they make quite an efficient band. Let It Go was a stand-out song. They've their own Scottish twist on hip hop lyrics, such as "it'll be like the Battle of Culloden" or rhyming Robert Mugabe with smell of scampi". I struggle with the West of Scotland white guys doing all the ghetto hand gestures and posturing though. See what you think.

So Shabazz Palaces walk on to a Sudanese track, and that Afro-centric background ran through the whole show (my new best pal, they're a chatty bunch these hip hop audiences, identified the track for me as his dad is Sudanese).

Shabazz Palaces at The Art School, Glasgow

They are a Seattle duo -  Ishmael Butler, who in previous incarnations has been Palaceer Lazaro, aka Butterfly of jazz-rap group Digable Planets and Tenai 'Baba' Maraire. They perform at times tightly and with choreographed dance moves reminiscent of Public Enemy, and at other times much more freely and feeling improvised, particularly in the long encore. Rhythms are not just from electronic beatboxes and a Roland Octapad, but from gourds, djembe drums and a kalimba thumb piano thing. There is a political edge to all this to. On the song "Swerve..." he chants "Black is you, black is me, black is us, black is free" whilst they both raise a black power salute which seemed timely with John Carlos, one of the athletes that did this in the 1968 Olympics, on a speaking tour in the UK just now.



They seemed to have managed to attract a few chin-stroking nosey people like me alongside some young kids with baseball caps on backwards, and played a 90 minute show. Though serious and concentrating throughout they seemed to enjoy themselves too and left after their extended encore with big, hearty smiles. Me too.