Staggerin 'Post-Colonial African Zombie State Chase The People Into the Waves
Watch Every Ship and Raft 'Til they disappear
When it make it or watery grave, hey, who's to say?
Golliwog is a character created in 1895 by the American writer Florence Kate Upton in a children's book. Depicted like a black doll with protruding eyes, red lips and showy clothes, initially it was presented in a positive way. However, his image was then simplified and widespread in toys and advertising, becoming a stereotyped and racist symbol. Used above all in the United Kingdom, he raised growing controversies for the denigration representation of black people. Today Golliwog is considered racist to overcome and reconsider in a critical and post-colonial perspective. It is also the name chosen by Billy Woods for the sequel to “Maps” (2023, with Kenny Segal). The album includes contributions to Al.Divino's microphone, Bruiser Wolf, Cavalier, Despot, Elucid and Yoland Watson, while the production is entrusted to a team of important names such as The Alchemist, Ant, conductor Williams, DJ Haram, El-P, Jeff Markey, Human Error Club, Kenny Segal, Messiah Musik, Preservation, Sadhugold, Saint Abdullah, Shabaka Hutchings, Steel Tipped where and Willie Green.
It is a bleak journey, disturbing and full of discomfort, which leads the listener to the center of a suffocating malaise, where poetry and beauty emerge as a tragic contrast.
The distorted deduct of “Jumpsca” is the starting point to start a descent into the underworld of an Afropessimism that alternates abstraction and political statements, sound explorations and minutes at the limits of theonical to be mixed with cacophonies, sample deformed and angular hardcore flames. It is an exploration that also borrows something from horror cinema, exploits the mechanisms of the macabre story and implements the allegory to comment on society and above all hostility against the world black.
It's a Dark Road, but it ain't no accidents
No coincidences, It's all praxis
It is a succession of threatening visions, such as in the lugubre jazz-rap of “Miser” (with the return of Kenny Segal) or in the distressing tension of “Waterproof Mascara”, but with rare moments of creativity just more colorful (the very loving “Blk Xmas” Featuring Bruiser Wolf) and others a little more canonical (“Cold Sweat”).
Neighbors Just Got Evicted
How You Gon 'Put Folks Out a Week Before Christmas and They Got Kids?
Them People Sick in They Head, It's Sickening
Everything Niggas Got, Tubed in the Street, Crying Kids, It's Wicked
The way in which the rhythmic element fades up to disappear, as well as the presence of sounds and samples that draw from a large lexicon that also includes cinematographic citations, add a visionary dimension to the entire album.
On the sound level, some moments are of absolute value, complex mechanisms of expressionism in the form of beat Atypical, as in the case of “Pitchforks & Halos”, or extravagant sci-fi explorations such as “All These Worlds Are Yours” Featuring Elucid, DJ Haram, Shabaka Hutchings.
In an album without the shadow of a single, to be listened to in full and run as a single sound journey, “Blk Zmby” is the only, partial, exception. Dominated by short songs, often under three minutes, “Golliwog” excels even when the minutage increases in “Lead Paint Test” with Elucid and Cavalier, dreamlike and melancholy.
Closed by the Jazz-Rap Actoplasm entitled “Dislocated” (Featuring Elucid), “Golliwog” risks not being appreciated enough because yet another thick album in a discography full of remarkable moments. Unsuitable for those looking for hip-hop entertainment, it is a deep and complex album, coherent and gloomy. One of the best of the year, probably, at least in its kind.
05/06/2025
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
