They Don’t Love You Like I Love You
The author of one of last year’s most interesting and unique hip hop albums rejoins one of his earliest collaborators for an introspective, atmospheric concept album that ranks among the best of the year so far.
Maps
billy woods & Kenny Segal
Abstract Hip Hop / Jazz Rap
Since 2012, billy woods has been prolific and consistently cerebral. Just last year, the man released two highly acclaimed albums, Church, and one of the best examples of all that abstract hip hop can attain, Aethiopes. These catapulted woods into his current massive following, but last year was no fluke. woods’ reputation for delivering both quantity AND quality has been slowly earned over many years.
In 2019, woods teamed up with producer Kenny Segal to create Hiding Places, which generated a lot of attention for both of them. At that point, it was by a wide margin the most popular album that either of the duo had created, full of experimental, out-of-time drums and jazz instrumentation. The nostalgia of those pre-pandemic days clearly became too much to bear, so woods and Segal have teamed up once again, and the results are even more spectacular.
The closing verse of “Babylon By Bus” is easily one of the most stellar in woods’ career so far, especially with a line like “people don’t want the truth / They want me to to tell ‘em grandma went to heaven.” The duo ShrapKnel’s appearance on the track is also a delight, quickly trading mini-verses back and forth across its length. Segal’s beat is nearly sci-fi, using a distorted, low synth tone that oscillates back and forth as a live drum kit mimics the sound of some distant machine struggling to start. When a full string arrangement comes in, it appears like a valiant hero to rescue us from the Lovecraftian horror.
“Year Zero” features personal favorite, Detroit-based experimental rapper extraordinaire, Danny Brown, while Segal degrades his beat into an ultra-slow soundtrack to some Blade Runner sequel played at quarter speed. When his feature kicks in, Brown’s hyped-up aggressive style is a welcome change of pace amidst the more atmospheric beats and woods’ downright depressing (if horrifyingly accurate) lines bemoaning the prevalence of gun violence in America (“Sooner or later it's gon' be two unrelated active shooters / Same place, same time / “Great minds””). Here he delivers one of the most enjoyable lines of the whole album, “n***as illiterate, can’t read the room we in / So get your cameras out, it’s a movie then.”
Lead singer of Baltimore’s own Future Islands, Sam Herring, appears on “FaceTime,” bringing a wistful air that complements woods’ moody tale of yolo-ing to the desert west to escape anyone and everyone. The first verse includes billy going full Beastie Boys in his extensive rhyme scheme: “what you expect? / Play stupid games you flyin’ easyJet / Bratislava, Utrecht / Something fell off before I even left / So when I saw the missed calls, I knew what was next / Didn’t have to open the text / Stupid prizes, couple’s therapy on Zoom, it’s a train wreck.” Both sets of vocals fit exactly with Segal’s slow, ethereal beat, a single clarinet backed by a wind chime flourish, showcasing his penchants for both jazz and experimentation.
Many, many listeners will find woods’ dark humor, dry delivery, and performance that is more reminiscent of spoken word than rap, too esoteric to truly connect with. Segal’s beats may be too experimental, his instrumentation, while versatile, verging on the unnervingly creepy. Even speaking for myself, I’ve tried multiple times to get into woods, but it never really clicked. But Maps’ mixture of abstract jazz, varied textures, and a pen game beyond the rest of the field, makes listening to billy woods’ and Kenny Segal’s project effortless, otherworldly, and magnificent.
