Maps - billy woods & Kenny Segal (2023)

by Kiran Berger (Our Opinions Not Yours & Cold Rainy Night in Stoke)

My album of the year so far, billy woods continues his run as an elite experimental hip-hop artist. Compared to his intricately conceptual “Aethiopes” of last year, and this duo’s last full-length record “Hiding Places” in 2019, Maps is far more varied and lyrical, with woods’ impressive rhyme schemes and word choice cementing him as a fascinating, yet anonymous voice in underground hip-hop. Maps is an escape from woods’ frequent political and social commentary, and instead focuses on his life on the road post-COVID. As distant airplane announcements and spooky, turbulent production from Kenny Segal electrify the dread-filled, humorous and complicated mind of billy woods, we’re left wondering if there is anything his brilliant lyricism can’t accomplish, and what messages he has in store for us next.