All That Shabazz - Shabazz Palaces Interview

Ishmael Butler and Tendai Maraire, aka Seattle hip hop outfit Shabazz Palaces, have just arrived in Dublin, where in a few hours they’ll kick off a tour showcasing latest album, Lese Majesty. An epic, abstract collection of otherwordly hip hop and electro beats, it comes as no surprise to learn that the pair quite literally carved out a space within an artists’ collective – a former brewery in fact! – to work on the record.

“Our studio is in a place called Old Rainier Brewery,” Maraire explains. “It was difficult to build, as there were lots of different woods and textures. We got it done. I’m not good at looking at an empty space and imagining what it would look like. But when we walked in, Ish immediately knew it was gonna be fresh. I didn’t get it, I looked at him and said, ‘There’s junk everywhere!’"
What was it Ishmael saw in the then-cluttered space?
“For me, it was the realisation of a dream,” he says. “We’d always talked about having our own studio. It was just a raw space. I could tell we could section it off and have different rooms with different sounds. More than anything, we would have our own place where we could go and do our thing.”
It sounds that, at this stage, the pair have an almost intuitive collaborative relationship.
“We both trust each other enough to know that if one of us starts a new rhythm or cadence on stage, the other one will get it,” Maraire resumes. “We were both athletes, though we went to rival high schools! Playing sport creates teamwork, camaraderie, respect for someone else’s opinion, ideas and creative thought.”
Like their debut Black Up, the pair released Lese Majesty with minimum fuss, opting to forego the reams of ‘I’d like to thank my parents’ credits and influences that often appear on album sleeves. Would they rather the listener take the record at face value, without attempting to contextualise it within pop culture?
“What we try to do is capture a theme”, begins Butler, “and the listener can then expound on that theme, based on their reference points and experience. The art that I like isn’t highbrow. I don’t like the whole idea of; ‘I established the meaning as the artist, and if you don’t get it, you’re part of a lesser group of people.' We present our music with the understanding that the listener has some intelligence - at least emotional intelligence - to come to some feeling about it.”
Has the music industry become overly-obsessed with genre and categorisation?
“Without question”, Butler nods. “It’s marketing-oriented. It’s people trying to sell product to people who aren’t discerning; ‘Oh you like hip hop? Buy this.’ It’s branding. And it’s flipped too – your brand used to come after your product. Now you can precede your product with branding, and reach a certain demographic who only respond to that branding. It’s robotic.”
Maraire continues, “The internet has opened up new doors, and nobody knows what the outcome is going to be. Obviously it can be good; it’s put us in a position to be in Dublin today. Because of the internet, people find you. For us, we make the music and let whoever likes it come to it naturally.”
Shabazz Palaces are signed to independent Seattle label Sub Pop, and it certainly seems like a great fit.
“They believe in the artists they sign,” says Butler, “and they believe that if they can facilitate those artists in realising their vision, they’ll benefit too, because whatever that person produces will be the best that they can make. So they don’t really get in the way at all; they want you to do your thing.”
In their early days, the duo were reluctant to do much press around the Shabazz project. Though the enigmatic pair are somewhat shrouded in mystery as a result, Butler explains their decision quite simply.
“We wanted the horse to come before the cart. We like doing interviews and getting attention. We just didn’t want to alter our own story, or self-mythologise. We want to be in places where we’re wanted, rather than where it’s been arranged.”
It’s safe to say the pair are wanted in Dublin, as tonight’s show – and a jam-packed gig at the same venue two years ago – proves. What brought them back to the intimate confines of the Twisted Pepper?
“It has character,” Butler smiles, looking around the venue. “You can tell the guys who made this place had an idea and vision. The people who work here are cool, they have a positive energy. By the time we get on stage, we’re taken care of, everything’s cool. It makes for a great show.”

Lese Majesty is out now on Sub Pop Records.