Shabazz Palaces

Seattle experimental hip hop group Shabazz Palaces is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Tendai Maraire and rapper Ishmael Butler, formerly of the ’90s jazz-rap group Digable Planets. In Planets, Butler—then known as Butterfly—kicked relentlessly positive free-associative verses. But under his Palaceer Lazaro guise, he's not afraid to get real mystical, real quick. Shabazz’s debut release, the spacey and ultra-sonic Black Up, was one of 2011’s most engrossing albums; the recent sophomore LP, Lese Majesty, raises the sci-fi stakes.