MACKLEMORE
  • MACKLEMORE

LASER SHABAZZ

On the evening of Saturday, April 26, I entered the Pacific Science Center's Laser Dome with three other writers who had participated in a panel discussion at EMP's Pop Conference. We found seats, gossiped a little, and waited for Sub Pop's preview of Shabazz Palaces' second album, Lese Majesty, which would be released in late July. Then it happened: The place went as dark as the night outside and laser lights transformed the dome above our heads into a universe in tune with the new beats and raps. But more impressive than the movement of the lights and the fantastic shapes they formed and reformed was the fullness of the music flowing from what certainly felt like the best speakers in the region. In fact, after the album's first track, "Dawn in Luxor," it was clear to me and everyone else that the dazzle of the lasers was superfluous. The music and the darkness were more than enough. By the second track, "Forerunner Foray," I understood that we were listening to the best hiphop album of 2014. The event ended with "Sonic MythMap for the Trip Back," a work whose echoes and chants have the kind of sad beauty one imagines can be located at the point where black holes dissociate stars and other astronomical bodies into scintillating streams of matter…

KEEP READING>>