Aethiopes
billy woods & Preservation
2022
Aethiopes is another dinger knocked out of the park by billy woods, this time teaming up with producer Preservation. The theme/concept fixates on the eternal plight of the Aethiope.
“it’s focused on the feedback loop of otherness. Its title is an antiquated European term for Africans that emphasizes both the dissonance and overlap between Africa the idea and Africa the physical place… I guess, to me, there’s a lot going on about Blackness as an idea, Africa as an idea, Africa as a reality. The diaspora, looking at the land and vice versa. And obviously from the cover to the title itself, the idea of the other.”
“Thinking about the real Ethiopia, which comes up more than once, both sonically and in words. Half of my family is Jamaican and I have Rastas in my family who feel like Haile Selassie was God, the Messiah. And half of my family is from Africa, although nowhere near Ethiopia. But again, you’re talking about the other, and ideas of blackness, which don’t necessarily have to line up with the reality of it. It’s an idea – like, Europeans decided what Blackness was.” – billy woods
Stand-Out Tracks
No Hard Feelings
Wharves
Heavy Water
Asylum
