Shabazz Palaces' 'It's a Style Sport' Is a Loose-Limbed Masterpiece of Live-Band Afrofuturism
The eighth Shabazz Palaces album arrived on Sub Pop on 23 October, and the first thing you notice is the room. It’s a Style Sport was built with players rather than only with machines, over a core tracking stretch of eight days in Seattle. Ishmael Butler co-produced with Erik Blood, who also mixed it at Circular Ruin and played instrumentation throughout. Warren Defever mastered it at Third Man Mastering in Detroit.
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Evan Flory-Barnes plays both upright and electric bass here, and that choice organises the whole record. Bandcamp Daily’s Dusty Henry heard it immediately: “The plucked bass notes of ‘Field Notes’ even call to mind his earlier work in Digable Planets.” Nothing is quantised into submission; the bottom of this mix breathes.
The Spatial Dynamics: Blood keeps the programmed and the played in genuine conversation rather than layering one over the other. Paste’s Luke Cartledge, who gave it a B+, put it plainly: “Their live arrangements masterfully intersect with the programmed beats and synths.” On “Tongue In Chic” that means, in Cartledge’s words, “its Prince-like strut framing Butler’s direct, conversational delivery.”
Standout Performance
Kassa Overall on drums. Cartledge singles him out — “Overall’s sensitive, tactile percussion is particularly well-judged” — and he is right that the word is sensitive. Carlos Overall’s saxophone and Thaddeus “Thaddillac” Turner’s guitar and keys fill out a band that enjoys itself.
Why It’s Certified
🌈 Henry’s verdict: “The beats and production still feel a century ahead of their time.” Thirty-five years into a career, that is not a sentence critics usually have to reach for.
⚡ Treble’s J. Smith on Butler himself: “If rappers were ranked on vocal presence alone, Ishmael Butler would be atop a shortlist of the best ever.”
🌈 The closer, “From One Future To Another,” lands — per Cartledge — “pitched somewhere between cosmic jazz, space-rock, and shoegaze.” A rap record that exits through a wall of distortion and tenderness.
Henry’s closing thought is the one to keep: “It fulfills the promise of Shabazz Palaces—always experimenting, always on the brink of something new.” Metacritic 79, five favorable reviews, nothing mixed or negative. Certified great.