Billy Woods is playing a Dublin show
The enigmatic and influential rapper is coming to town.
Billy Woods plays Opium Rooms on Friday October 3rd this year, following on from a recent show here from Elucid, his partner in the NYC hip-hop duo Armand Hammer.
Woods own solo material is amongst the most lyrically interesting and dense in hip-hop, and the Washington DC-based New York artist has released a number of records that are among the best in modern hip-hop albums, including 2023’s Maps with Kenny Segal, or 2022’s Aethiopes or 2023’s We Buy Diabetic Test Strips Armand Hammer record.
Catch him at Opium Rooms in Dublin on on Friday October 3rd, with the gig promoted by Singular Artists.
Tickets are €22 plus fees on sale Friday March 14th at 10am. Presale at that link too.
Woods is one of the best MCs operating right now, and has just announced a new album called GOLLIWOG on May 9th. The title is a derogatory and racist word for a black person. More on the album below.
GOLLIWOG is billy woods’ first album in two years, preceded by 2023’s Maps, his second collaboration with producer Kenny Segal. That nimble travelogue has little in common with woods’ newest work, despite the fact that Segal shows up a couple times in the credits.
GOLLIWOG is a haunting collection that weaves horror, humor, surrealism and Afropessimism into a cinematic tapestry, aided and abetted by a murderer’s row of producers. African zombies, time traveling trap cars, malevolent ragdolls and a dying Frantz Fanon are just a few of the revelers in woods’ danse macabre.
GOLLIWOG features production from The Alchemist, Kenny Segal, EL-P, Conductor Williams, Preservation, Messiah Musik, Sadhugold, Ant (Atmosphere), Shabaka Hutchings, Steel Tipped Dove, DJ Haram, Willie Green, Jeff Markey, Saint Abdullah, and LA-based experimental jazz trio Human Error Club. Meanwhile, woods is joined on the mic by Backwoodz labelmates ELUCID and Cavalier, along with rappers Bruiser Wolf, Despot, Al.Divino, and singer-songwriter Yolanda Watson.
Billy Woods bio
billy woods is a rapper who defies easy categorization; he claims Washington D.C. as his hometown but has spent much of his life in New York City. He was born in the U.S. but spent much of his childhood in Africa and the West Indies, the second child of a Jamaican intellectual and a would-be Marxist revolutionary. On the mic, woods is no less of a conundrum, possessed of versatile flows and an ability to not only tackle topics other artists wouldn’t dream of, but also to bring unique perspectives to the familiar ones.
After spending much of the 2000’s as half of the now defunct Super Chron Flight Brothers, woods struck out on his own with 2012’s audacious mission statement, History Will Absolve Me. An album two years in the making, History…was a molotov cocktail of sarcastic fury, with production to match its uncompromising vision.
2013 saw billy woods collaborating with producer Blockhead (Ninja Tune, Def Jux) on the darkly humorous LP, Dour Candy. A noteworthy about-face from HWAM, Dour Candy garnered praise for its understated tone and wry wit, paired with Blockhead’s subtle craftsmanship. That same year, woods and fellow NYC rapper Elucid joined forces as Armand Hammer and released the incendiary album Race Music to critical acclaim. 2014 saw only the release of a vinyl-only EP by Armand Hammer, Furtive Movements, a more abstract project that in some ways served to set the stage for woods’ and Elucid’s solo work here in 2015.
Long before building the modest-but-loyal cult following that came with the Flight Brothers, woods made a name for himself with a left-field debut album and one intriguing ensemble project after another. A longtime associate of Cannibal Ox, he came into the game on the back of a collaborative record with Vordul called Camouflage, a low-budget, ultra-indie release that set the table for woods’ particular brand of blunted dissonance and lyrical tight roping. Camouflage was quickly followed by his first, true solo album, The Chalice, in 2004. With features from Cannibal Ox and future partner-in-rhyme Priviledge, The Chalice is widely accepted as woods’ best solo work to date. It would also be his last solo work for a long time as woods threw himself into a series of group projects, first as a part of East Coast rap “supergroup” The Reavers, with Akir, Karniege, Vordul Mega, Hasan Salaam and a host of other on-the-cusp MC’s in 2005.
Then came the Super Chron Flight Brothers; between 2006 and 2010, woods and Priviledge released a trilogy of critically-acclaimed concept albums, wrapping cogent sociopolitical commentary in a potent mix of racial humor, weed rap and pop-culture references.
