Aethiopes by Billy Woods

Best Tracks: Smith and Cross, Asylum
Genre: Experimental Hip Hop
Year: 2022

Up until this album, I never considered myself a fan of Billy Woods. He has always been a really good rapper, and I like the dirty, introspective, harsh hip hop sound he does. Even still, most of his previous work didn’t really captivate me. It wasn’t until Brass in 2020 that I felt Billy Woods had become someone special. That was the first of his albums I bought. Then his contributions to Call me When You’re Outside by Steel Tipped Dove sustained my interest in his discography. So now, Aethiopes is the third. Billy Woods has cemented himself as one of the most creative rappers making music today.

Aethiopes takes the relaxed, acoustic feel of conventional of jazz rap and turns it into something dark and disturbing. “No Hard Feelings” caries this feeling even deeper, mixing what sounds like bagpipes with abrasive, dark synths. “Wharves” samples gamelan music, delving further into strange acoustics and instrumentation. Every song on this album flows into the next, taking the listener deeper and deeper. By “Sauvage”, the instrumentals consist of screeches, unusual percussion, and bass piano. At times, Aethiopes reminds me of songs like “The Walls & Windows” by Aceyalone, but Billy Woods goes even farther by including foreign instrumentation to create an unfamiliar environment for his excellent lyricism to marinate in. You could almost make an argument that this album is an example of Exoticism.

Anyways, “Versailles” and “Protoevangelium” work to slowly bring the listener out from Billy Woods’ dark abstractions. The album eventually climaxes with “Remorseless”, if a climax can actually be the soft release of all of the pent-up tension from the previous 9 tracks. The synth, gorgeous organ chords, and vocal samples make it easily my favourite track on the album. “Smith + Cross” feels like a coda, in Billy Woods’ textbook abstract hip hop style. As the track fades out, I want to loop the album over again. Aethiopes has quickly become one of my favourite albums in a long time, and I am super excited to see where Billy Woods goes from here.

update (2025): actually nevermind, he couldn’t top this