Photo by Natalia Vacheishvili

“When I was nine years old, I wrote a story about an evil golliwog. My mother read it and told me it was overly derivative and needed some work. Here we are,” says billy woods when introducing the lore behind the Armand Hammer member’s new solo album, GOLLIWOG (for context, Merriam-Webster defines a “golliwog” as “a type of black rag doll with exaggerated features and colorful clothing that was formerly popular as a children’s toy in Britain and Australia,” so yeah, some pretty creepy racist connotations there right off the bat.) Evil lurks in different forms nonetheless on lead single “Misery”, with woods’ role as main character being that of a touring rapper entrapped by a femme fatale succubus. If Mother Woods’ critique of her son’s pen at a young age is what has led to him becoming among the finest poet laureates in the rap world, then it was for the best, as his description of this vampiric fame fucker leaves no graphic detail untouched, from all the kinds of sex to the blood-lust aftermath, over a head-blown pomp ‘n jazz beat produced by collaborative constant Kenny Segal. The whole thing plays out like one bad dream, not that woods’ seems in an hurry to wake up from the spell any time soon…

billy woods’ GOLLIWOGG will be released May 9th on Backwoodz Studioz.