Shabazz Palaces just dropped It's a Style Sport, and it is the most open Ishmael Butler has sounded in years. The ten track album landed Friday, October 23 on Sub Pop, and it treats rap the way he says it used to be treated: as a friendly, competitive sport where style and substance both count.
A rap record about the art of out styling everyone
Butler sums up the idea himself in the album notes: taking it back to what rap is really about, a tough but friendly contest to see who can out style the next person with surface flash and real substance at the same time. That framing runs through everything here. Instead of hiding behind dense abstraction, he points the spotlight back at himself, looking at his past, the choices he has made and the future he still wants to build.
The opener, "Ahh World (I Won The Alpha Bet)", sets the tone. Butler plays an all knowing narrator telling his own rise in the third person, then closes with a list of rules for living well. From there the record measures success by character more than by trophies, which is a refreshing stance for a genre so obsessed with scoreboards.
The songs worth running back
"Show Me Missouri In Mink" slides into a melodic R&B flow. "Tongue In Chic" is the fun one, a whimsical pop number about dating misadventures, built on punchy drums, Prince style guitar licks and Italo disco synths, with Butler repeating that he needs a new girlfriend like a teenager who means it. Then the closer, "From One Future To Another", opens on sparse upright bass and brushed cymbals before blooming into a fuzzy, swirling live band wash sung in falsetto. It is the moment that sticks.
Built with the band that has been on the road with him
This is a communal record. Butler gathered his closest collaborators for eight days of sessions, with songs sketched out in advance and room left to play. The credits include Evan Flory-Barnes on upright and electric bass, Thaddeus Turner on guitar, keyboards and vocals, Gerald Turner on bass and vocals, Kassa Overall on drums and Carlos Overall on saxophone. Longtime partner Erik Blood co-produced with Shabazz Palaces and mixed the album, and recording spread across studios in Brooklyn, Seattle and Los Angeles before mastering by Warren Defever at Third Man Mastering in Detroit. Many of these players have toured with Shabazz Palaces and Digable Planets for years, and you can hear that ease in how loose and live it feels.
It is the eighth Shabazz Palaces studio album, following Robed In Rareness in 2023 and Exotic Birds Of Prey in 2024. That run of experiments makes this one land harder, because it trades some of the fog for clarity without losing the strangeness.
Formats
It's a Style Sport is out now on CD, LP and digital. The limited Loser edition LP comes on Metallic Silver vinyl in North America and Sparkle Starlight vinyl in the UK and EU, while supplies last. You can also stream and buy it on the official Shabazz Palaces Bandcamp.
Our call
This one is Surfacing. Fifteen years after Black Up arrived in 2011, Butler is still finding new rooms in hip hop, and this time he left the door open for everyone. Start with "Ahh World" for the thesis, stay for "Tongue In Chic", and let "From One Future To Another" play out to the last note.
Want more from the label? Dig through our Sub Pop Records starter guide, then chase the jazz roots with our Blue Note Records starter guide and the left field beats in our Stones Throw starter guide.
It's a Style Sport at Sub Pop · Shabazz Palaces at Sub Pop · It's a Style Sport on Bandcamp · Ahh World official visualizer
