You’ll often hear me complaining about the state of modern hip-hop, not because I hate the artists at the top but because little happens when the innovators make a truly special record. But hell, it’s the same in all genres isn’t it? Luckily Shabazz Palaces and an increasing amount of others are, as he says in one of his tracks, “a bright light on dark side of town.”

Shabazz Palaces is as mysterious as a mirage and his name evokes the same obscurity. Never giving out interviews (that I can find) and publishing as little information as possible, he certainly is an enigma. I can only hazard a guess at most of the things to do with this project of his, and one of these guesses is that he takes the first part of the name ‘Shabazz’ as a nod to Shabazz the Disciple, a member of the brilliant Sunz of Man, but I could be wrong and I probably am, go google it and see if you can find any likely connections, dare you. Either way I like them both. But what I do know is that Shabazz Palaces is actually Palaceer Lazaro aka Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler, who used to belong to alternative hip-hop group Digable Planets in the 1990s and later Cherrywine. But that’s all I’ve got on that front.

His most recent releases arrived in 2009 on the label Templar Label Group in the form of two 7 song albums, first being Of Light and the second being Self-titled, both gathered plenty of positive reviews on paper and on the web. Not sure this means much to SP though. He put this record out without any fanfare, did he want any back in return? What you see is what you get, what you listen to is just that. Both records speak for themselves, and this lack of information just helps them speak louder.

[wpaudio url=”http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11615889/04%20-%20Shabazz%20Palaces%20-%20Blastit.mp3″ text=”SHABAZZ PALACES – BLASTIT” dl=”0″]

[wpaudio url=”http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11615889/01%20-%20Shabazz%20Palaces%20-%20Gunbeat%20Falls.mp3″ text=”SHABAZZ PALACES – GUNBEAT FALLS” dl=”0″]