billy woods

Billy Woods is a rapper who defies easy categorization; he claims Washington D.C. as his hometown but has spent much of his life in New York City. He was born in the U.S. but spent much of his childhood in Africa and the West Indies, the second child of a Jamaican intellectual and a would-be Marxist revolutionary. On the mic, woods is no less of a conundrum, possessed of versatile flows and an ability to not only tackle topics other artists wouldn’t dream of, but also to bring unique perspectives to the familiar ones.

After spending much of the 2000’s as half of the now defunct Super Chron Flight Brothers, woods struck out on his own with 2012’s audacious mission statement, History Will Absolve Me. An album two years in the making, History…was a molotov cocktail of sarcastic fury, with production to match it’s uncompromising vision.

2013 saw billy woods collaborating with producer Blockhead (Ninja Tune, Def Jux) on the darkly humorous LP, Dour Candy. A noteworthy about-face from HWAM, Dour Candy garnered praise for it’s understated tone and wry wit, paired with Blockhead’s subtle craftsmanship. That same year, woods and fellow NYC rapper Elucid joined forces as Armand Hammer and released the incendiary album Race Music to critical acclaim. 2014 saw only the release of a vinyl-only EP by Armand Hammer, Furtive Movements, a more abstract project that in some ways served to set the stage for woods’ and Elucid’s solo work here in 2015.

Presented by DM Generation.

This is a 14+ event (14-17s accompanied by 21+ adult 1:1 ratio).