experimental hip-hop

Shabazz Palaces are percussionist Tendai Maraire and Ishmael Butler, formally of Digable Planets and Cherrywine. While Tendai employs ancient instruments from his homeland Zimbabwe, Ishmael provides the group’s vision and vocals. For Butler, who never stopped making music since he released his classic album by Digable Planets , ''Blowout Comb'', Shabazz palaces is his latest place to play with ideas. Those ideas have always been simultaneously global in their expansiveness and basement ceiling low in their commitment to hip-hop’s bottom line.