Ishmael Butler has been consistently exploring the outer reaches of music for the last three and a half decades.
In the early 90s, he helped pioneer jazz-infused hip-hop by founding Digable Planets, the Grammy Award-winning trio who released two landmark albums, toured with Sade, and are still playing live together today. Butler’s later creative rebirth as Shabazz Palaces began in earnest 15 years ago with the experimental, highly influential debut album, “Black Up”. Butler has continued to push boundaries over seven subsequent Shabazz Palaces albums, and his exemplary taste and verve has led to collaborations with Flying Lotus, Thundercat, George Clinton, Clipping, Battles, Oneohtrix Point Never, Animal Collective, plus his own son, Lil Tracy.
The new Shabazz Palaces album “It’s a Style Sport” will be released on October 23rd.
Questions and Answers
3 FACTS
1: there is no GOAT of anything, no one person is the greatest at anything. all GOAT debates are moot stop having them.
2: Opinion Talking online or on TV in any form ie sports analyst podcast ect is NOT a job yes people get paid to do it but it’s just a paid activity not a job. When someone say “it’s my job to…” ask a woman what her body count is or say a quarterback should get benched ect just roll your eyes.
3: chicken thighs need to be cooked longer.
11 QUESTIONS
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
When I was born I noticed the doctor looked at me oddly. the look a mixture of unbidden reverence which melted into a rivalrous mask. Then, when my mother wasn’t looking he whispered in my ear “boy you can’t rap” i don’t know man that shit stuck with me i feel like my whole life is just dedicated to and driven by proving him wrong.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
When I was about 8 my father bought me an alto saxophone. We were in Philly. He revealed this to me at night in summer inside of his tan Volkswagen Dasher. i assembled the horn and blew it and got excited as the sounds swirled up into the Germantown night. I hadn’t learned to soak my reed yet. My first sax teacher was Bobby Zankel
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time? (yes we know it is difficult).
cocteau twins heaven or las vegas
prince 1999
gregory isaacs more gregory
miles davis kind of blue
eric b and rakim paid in full
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
one time I met this Russian dude there. He was the promoter of our show that night. It was springtime and kind of warm he drove a drop top bmw he knew a lot of people in on the party scene. Before the show he took me to his house to get some weed and show me his art. His building was an old factory or military type building. The entire building was made of cement that was painted. It had a park bench in the courtyard that was 10x the size you would expect. The courtyard was bustling, all types of people coming and going, artistic folks, free, happy and relaxed and busy. We walked up a wide circular staircase up many floors through an unlocked door that opened up into a vast room. The room was so huge his minimal furniture set up looked like a dollhouse. His paintings were good IMO, colorful abstractions very mathematical and balanced. I felt fascinated. When I saw his makeshift kitchen I realized he and everyone else there was squatting. He told me that the city knew they were all there, siphoning shelter comfort and electricity. All aspects of this reality astonished, amazed and impressed me. The show that night was great. We did so many encores by the last one we were just making songs up because we’d run out of material. I met a lady from the city of Cologne. She pronounced my name in a beautiful way. After our show we all went to eat vegan burgers at a stand near an elevated train. At 1am a night of magics had just begun.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
seward park at lake washington
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
I like to think I would be part of the group that invented music. We would meet in an open quarry way out past where the dwellings were, beating on hollowed out tree trunks and using the quarry’s acoustics to amplify and make strance the nuances of our voices. the one among us who knew how to harvest the happy plant would bring a lot and we would burn it and laugh and move and make sounds at the same time together. the one among us who can never find the “one” would go get more happy plant for us oh and a bucket of water while he was out.
7. What was the last record/music you bought or listened to?
Johnnie Wilder Jr. My Goal
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
my mom and dad Barbara and Reginald.
Regina Hall
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
Solange at a festival in TX somewhere i also saw Dean Blunt perform that night also Les Claypool on the deck stage on Jam Cruise i was off my top
10. The album brings different versions of your past into conversation with who you are now. After more than three decades of making music, how has your relationship with your younger artistic self changed – is he someone you still recognise, someone you argue with, or someone you learn from?
Yes, I recognize my younger self. We never argue. Do i resent that he got to eat so much pizza and i don’t get none no more yes but that’s life. one day you’re in the ‘ZA the next you’re out.
11. Please tell us more about how your new album ‘It’s a Style Sport’ came about.
Nah son
