By Steven Burgess
NOTE: Out of the artist’s request, Billy Woods face will be obscured in photos.
New York-based Experimental Hip-Hop extraordinaire Billy Woods is on tour promoting his newest record, GOLLIWOG. A prolific figure within the underground music scene, Woods’ contributions to the duo Armand Hammer with rapper E L U C I D and his many collaborations with producer Kenny Segal have made him known as a “rapper’s rapper,” praised for his intricate rhyme schemes and thoughtful lyricism.
This weekend, Woods performed at the Crescent Ballroom in Phoenix, Arizona. Opening for Woods, DOSEONE performed over a versatile array of beats with an eccentric vocal delivery. His delivery would shift from a low-timbre to highly animated within a given song. Between songs he would banter with the audience on topics ranging from tattoos, God not existing, and Jude Law as a celebrity pope. The best part of his set was the production, as his beats ranged from psychedelic to borderline horrorcore.
Once Billy Woods got on stage, he had the crowd in the palm of his hand. His stage set-up was very simple: him, a mic, and his laptop. With no backing track to help Woods, there was not a single song that he didn’t give it his all. Each song was meticulously rapped as Woods would spill his guts over what sounded like the soundtrack to a non-existent horror movie on songs such as “Misery” and “A Doll Fulla Pins” with their deafening saxophone lines and drums.
As each song played, I felt my body enveloped in the bass as Woods would passionately rap over each beat with such ferocity. Woods’ ability to amplify the uneasy nature of his songs through soundscapes is incredibly effective. Rapping over the haunting sounds of a crying woman, Woods confesses past traumas such as losing his father on “Waterproof Mascara” with hard-hitting lines like “Scared when it came through the walls, I covered my ears / Half-hoping you-know-who would die, then he did (Surprise) / Careful what you wish for, might just get that shit.”
Woods’ delivery is his underlying superpower as a rapper. From “BLK ZMBY” to “No Hard Feelings,” each song was mesmerizing as he let the audience hang onto every word. A fan favorite was “Spongebob,” with the audience going bar for bar with Woods, with the crowd chanting, “you promised!” making the song chilling when paired with violent war imagery. "Remorseless" was one of my favorite live songs because it was a powerful display of Woods' complex rhyme schemes amplified by a beautifully melancholic synth.
Billy Woods is not for the faint of heart. His songs are dark, often having abstract production, yet what draws me to his music and this performance is how emotionally naked his music feels. For an artist that frequently obscures his face, it is through hearing Woods rapping that he allows the audience an opportunity to gaze into his diary. Woods says it best himself: “I am here to plunge a knife into the gaps in that makeshift armor, so you can feel it, see the blood and know that there is no protection” (Brooklyn Magazine).