Now that I’ve listened through it multiple times, I want to write a review of “History Will Absolve Me” by Billy Woods. Rather than doing a regular, broad look at the whole album though, I’m going to look at each track individually. That’s not to say that the album doesn’t have a cohesive feel or that I feel that the album as a whole is not more than the sum of its parts, ideas that I will discuss in my last paragraph. I just found that I had so much that I want to say about each track that it would feel incomplete not to write it all out. So, without further ado, here we go.
A Mis Enemigos (High Tide)
What an opener. Although it’s definitely not my favorite track on the album, it is a spectacular first track in the sense that it is a solid taste of what this album is going to sound like. Featuring a mean, catchy beat by Marmaduke, some great demonstration of Billy’s unusual flow and a taste of his lyrical genius, it perfectly introduces all the traits of a Billy Woods track while leaving plenty of room for the album to swell. Pretty much my only complaint about this track is the extended sample at the end. It’s not terrible, and it definitely fits for a certain amount of time, but I find that it kind of drags on and I start to wonder when it’s going to end after the first couple of seconds.
Favorite Moment/Part: The beat
Crocodile Tears
If you thought the previous track was raw and angry, wait until you hear Crocodile Tears. The production by Willie Green (featured 8 times on the album) is absolutely awesome: incredibly aggressive, very catchy, and original. And Billy Woods is absolutely pissed on this album, dropping some of his harshest and most direct criticisms as well as a great in-your-face hook. Lines like “The problem with the army is they wanna be the boss/the problem with the secret police is they’re like a dirty gun you can’t toss” or “32 bars on how to rob and kill your neighbors/still have the nerve to ask god to save you” really stick out as some of his best, not just on the track but on the album.
Favorite Moment/Part: Tied between the beat and the hook
The Man Who Would Be King
Literary References: The Song. Referencing Edgar Allen Poe and Rudyard Kipling as well as the Bible many times, this song is probably the most intellectual on this album. It also has a really dark hook that I really enjoy as well: “Take up your burden, the savage wars of peace / Fill full the mouth of famine and bid the sickness cease / And when your goal is nearest, the end for others sought / Watch locked and heathen folly bring all your hopes to naught.” This line is actually almost a direct quote from White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling. The only difference is that Rudyard's poem starts with the phrase “White man's burden” instead of “Take up your burden”. While I’ll admit that most of his lyricism goes over my head, I can feel the anger and thought Billy throws behind the words he’s saying. I’m not a huge fan of the beat, but it holds its own and Billy really kills it.
Favorite Moment/Part: the lines: “With that holy trinity, who can argue my divinity under two red suns / Return like Kipling’s dead son, summoned by monkey paw / A thousand Philistines slain with a donkey’s jaw”
Ca$h 4 Gold
Perhaps his most direct criticism, Billy Woods takes on a very specific group: the kind of man who visits strip clubs. With a trippy, almost sleazy beat, the song paints the ugly truth of what goes on in strip clubs. He criticizes them on many levels, from how they pay (“tossing my child support on stage”) to the lies they manage to convince themselves of (“disbelief suspension, pretending I’m rich and she’s twenty years old”), ultimately painting these men as possibly the most disgusting humans on the planet. I’m a fan of the ending hook as well: “make it rain on a slow night / Roxxane turns out, you gotta put on that red light / stimulating simulation, the simulac(??) is faceless / put her on stage, she knows the basics / the apes is impatient / (something else)”. Nothing in particular stands out as fantastic, but it’s just another great example of how much energy and emotion Billy puts into his music.
Favorite Moment/Part: the hook at the end
Body of Work (feat. Roc Marciano and Masai Bey)
My second favorite track on the album, right after the closer, The Wake. Another Willie Green produced track, the beat on here is (of course) absolutely nasty. It’s probably my favorite on the whole album, as a matter of fact. It’s also the first track to feature guests, and the result is somewhat mixed. While the first guest, Masai Bey, pretty much kills it, the next guest, Roc Marciano doesn’t quite live up to the quality already established. Roc brings a style pretty similar to Billy’s: very asynchronous and asymmetrical. He so matches Billy’s style that for a while I actually thought it was Billy rapping, for better or for worse. His lyricism is also very much up to par with Billy’s. He actually drops what might be my favorite group of lines on the album: “positive warns me of the deceptions of negative/Negative is trying to convince me to believe positive is a sedative/I pondered this and learned that they both are relative to life on earth/and sometimes feels like a repetitive burn/ashes to ashes, held captive in the urn”. Masai’s style is much more straightforward and much less interesting. He has two thoughts, and they rhyme so he says them. While I think his voice is pretty cool, I don’t find his lyrics interesting or his delivery passionate. His mediocre performance is more than made up for by the beat though. Evoking the image of a mine, the beat is composed of a halting, powerful bass line with this really neat float-y flute over the top. Combined with the female vocals on the hook, it creates a very catchy and interesting background to rap against, and both Masai Bey and Billy Woods take full advantage of it.
Favorite Moment/Part: Tied between the line mentioned above and the beat
The Foreigner
This a middle ground track for me. It's not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it simply doesn't measure up to some of the other highs of the album. The lyricism, as usual, is probably my favorite part of the track: “that’s that honor amongst thieves / my enemy’s enemies are always well-received, served, ordeoureved / tricks up sleeves”. The gist of the track seems to be attacking hypocrites, and he certainly does it eloquently and passionately. The beat has a pretty mean bassline and some neat, kind of muted drums over which some dissonant strings play. It's a very enjoyable track, but the fact that I don't have much to say about it is perhaps the best indicator of how this track didn't really hit me like some of the other ones.
Favorite Moment/Part: the line mentioned above
Billy Cosby
The almost snarkily named Bill Cosby is one of the more unusual tracks on the album, and that’s certainly saying something considering that this is far from what might be considered a “normal” album. Spoken from the perspective of a man who failed to use protection and regrets it, this is another pointedly critical track. By spending time in the mind of this man, he points out all the ways this man has failed. While not quite as vicious as Ca$h 4 Gold, in my opinion, this track certainly brings it. It's also a bit of an oddity in the album, the only song clocking under 2 minutes. But it's length is not in any way a detriment. Every song has its own length and I definitely think the 1:50 of this track fits. It's also got a really neat beat with a repeating flowing piano arpeggio and some aggressive drums, again brought to you by the amazing Willie Green. This is kind of a sleeper track for me. I always kind of forget about it when listing my favorite tracks, but whenever I listen to it, I always have a moment where I realize that this track is actually really good.
Favorite Moment/Part: The beat, definitely
Freedman's Bureau (feat. Elucid)
For the sake of being blunt, this is one of my least favorite tracks on the album. The beat is pretty good, but nothing to phone home about, and it's probably the best thing about this track. The first verse, which is the guest Elucid, is delivered with this really raspy voice that tries to be a lot grittier than it is. His insistence on this delivery also seems to force him into a very unnatural, halting flow, which I'm not a huge fan of. And while I haven't sat down and parsed all of his lyrics, nothing sticks out to me when I listen to it. Then the chorus hits, and the beat shifts to something much simpler and less catchy than the verse beat. The only vocals on this part sound like they've been put through several filters, and have been dropped several octaves, again in an attempt to sound really gritty and mean that I'm just not a huge fan of. Luckily, the chorus only hits twice and Billy's verse, which hits right after the first chorus is as good as expected at this point. That's a pretty general theme on this album, actually. The parts of the songs that I don't like are always points where Billy isn't rapping. Unfortunately, there's a lot of time on this track where Billy isn't rapping. I do like this track, I guess. It just pales in comparison to many of the other songs on the album.
Favorite Moment/Part: The beat
Blue Dream (feat. L'Wren)
As an example of a track that Freedman's pales in comparison to, here's Blue Dream. What's interesting about this track is that I'm actually not a huge fan of Billy's flow through all of it, and the beat is definitely not one of my favorites. But the whole concept of the song, as well as the beautiful chorus really make it one of my favorite tracks. The first verse paints this picture of a relationship that seems to be going well. Lines like “It was like time didn't move for the count of one (one) two (two) / Then we're flying” and “Truth is when she around it's ill how words spill / But we don't have to say a thing just let that blue sing” make it seem like this relationship he's in is positive. Sure, there's some conflict because he doesn't want to give up weed for her, but the relationship itself is mostly painted positive. Until you get to the sample. Featuring a women yelling at a man about how he's “selfish, arrogant and so stupid”, this sample hits pretty hard, although not as hard as the chorus which drops right after. Featuring some very pretty vocals by L'Wren and pretty heartbreaking lyrics, this chorus really makes the song. The rest of the song lyrically doesn't thrill me. While Billy certainly is capable of expressing himself originally, the problem he's describing doesn't really strike me. But that chorus, and the shift in the beat that accompanies it, are really fantastic.
Favorite Moment/Part: The chorus- “You know you had me from the very start / And in my heart I thought we'd never part / Hazy days mix red and green / Purple nights of those would dreams”
DMCA
Just in case you thought Billy was getting soft with Blue Dream, he's back angrier than ever on DMCA. Focused on the topic of music tastes and practices amongst the population, he takes aim at music ADD (“30 days? If you're lucky, flavor of the week”) and pirating (“torrents got your whole album, and the instrumentals”) in a very catchy song. This song is possibly the best example of Billy's flow and rhythm, and the beat behind him is excellent. The production on this track is perhaps the most musical out of the album, featuring a melody played by a crisp, clean, finger-picked electric guitar and a neat bassline that meshes very well with the melody. Discussing the melody and the bassline about this song though is really missing the point. Looking big picture, this song is really one of the most complete in my opinion. Every part of it really meshes musically, Billy is on the top of his game lyrically and in his delivery and the samples used perfectly add to the atmosphere of the song. One of my favorite tracks.
Favorite Moment/Part: Gonna cop out here and just say the whole thing.
Pompeii
This track reminds me of “The Man Who Would Be King”, not in terms of the beat or any sort of musical similarity, but because I like this song for its lyrical content and social criticism more than I like it for its musicality. He drives home this idea of people using “following orders” as an excuse and really brings it to the people who use this excuse, absolutely laying into them for hiding behind these “orders” instead of taking any sort of real responsibility. He also gets into commentary on racism and white supremacy, talking about how the oppressors have changed their military uniforms for business suits. The chorus is pretty powerful, although I'll admit the language about the postmen goes right over my head. Other than that, this track really doesn't do too much for me. The beat is interesting, but lacks any of the catchiness that some of the other tracks have. Billy's flow is even more halting, personally a bit too much halting. It is not my least favorite track though, simply because the amount of meaning and anger he packs into it.
Favorite Moment/Part: The lyrical content
Duck Hunt
Really an interesting beat. Starting out with what sounds like audio pulled from the actual Duck Hunt, the main part of the song features some 8-bit and videogame-like sounds. And although I'll admit that I have no idea what the subject of this song is lyrically, the beat really holds it together. I think that confusion about what Billy's talking about here is my least favorite part of this track, and I'll willingly admit that probably has more to do with my own lack of intelligence than a lack of meaning put into the song. What kind of interests me is one line in the chorus that I can't help but construe as anti-DRM: “Yeah, it comes with the game but ain't a damn thing free”. While I'm sure there are a dozen other meanings that could come out of that, for some reason I hear it as anti-DRM. If it sounds like I'm BS-ing, it's because I kind of am. I find it hard to talk about this track because it's so middle ground for me. I really dig the beat, but other than that nothing sticks out as particularly good. That being said, I really can't find any complaints either. It's just a solid track, but nothing too special.
Favorite Moment/Part: The beat
Nigerian Email
Especially with the amount that “Freedman's Bureau” has grown on me, this is probably my least favorite, or second least favorite song on the album. The beat sounds disconnected and it commits a fatal flaw on a Billy Woods album: a large part of the song is spent without Billy rapping. As I mentioned above, there is pretty much nothing on this album done by Billy that I dislike and this song is no exception. I like his lyrics and his flow in the song, it's just that the rest of it doesn't seem to do him justice. The beat has this weird flute that floats above the rest of the beat without connecting to it solidly, and the rest of the beat feels sporadic and lacking solidity. The samples were kind of fuzzed out and had a good amount of reverb put on them, so understanding them is impossible and while some of them were still able to transmit emotion, most of them just kind of fell flat. Considering that my biggest complaint about the album as a whole is that it is simply too long, I would have liked to see this get cut or put into a bonus album or something. It just doesn't have enough emotional weight to feel like it deserves to be on the album.
Favorite Moment/Part: Billy's rapping, I guess
Pump Up The Volume (feat. L'Wren)
Unfortunately, this is the other contender for my least favorite track, although this one is much less subjective. While I have many complaints about the song, my biggest is how the chorus was layered on. I don't know if L'Wren was not around to record this in the studio, but there's an incredibly obvious volume and audio quality difference between Billy's rapping and the beat and her chorus and it is simply jarring. Every time the chorus hits, I feel like I just got slapped in the face. It is simply an unpleasant experience that has prevented me from enjoying the chorus in any way. That could be forgiven though, if the verses were absolutely killer. Unfortunately, they're really not. The beat feels awkward with some out-of-place background singing and a very static bassline. Regardless of what Billy might be saying, which I'm sure if passionate and relevant, I simply can't find myself forming any sort of attachment to this track because of these issues.
Favorite Moment/Part: I'm honestly not even sure.
Famous Last Words (feat. junclassic and MarQ Spekt)
Phew. We made it through the rough section of the album. It's all smooth sailing from here on out. This track might be the most normal on the album, taking much more of a bravado and bragging tone than many of the other tracks. The production is back up to standards with a really catchy beat that is built off of some head-nodding drumming and a heavy bassline and complemented on top by these sort of metallic synths. While it doesn't break quite the barriers that some of Willie Green's other tracks on the album do, it does the job of setting the appropriate tone. Only one of the guests actually drop a verse (MarQ Spekt) and it's perfectly functional. It's a bit more aggressive and shallow than much of Billy's stuff, but I dig his flow and style. The other guest, junclassic, drops the chorus in his deep, dark voice and it absolutely works. It sounds badass and it sounds heavy, both of which fit into the song perfectly. And of course, Billy kills it as well. His flow here is actually very normal. He fits into the beat more than he usually does, and while it perhaps makes the song less interesting, it certainly fits the tone, adding to the power and anger. His lyricism is, of course, brilliant and
Favorite Moment/Part: Tied between the chorus and the line “Shoot coward, you're only gonna kill a man”
Sour Grapes (feat. Elucid)
Pretty solid track. It's got a nice beat from A.M. Breakups, and it features Elucid again. The beat focuses on the drums, which lay down a catchy beat that some synths lay some interesting chords and hits behind. Elucid, the guest, has pretty good lyricism but his voice, like I mentioned above, is very scratchy and gruff, and it sounds to me like he's really forcing it. It works for the chorus, but I'm not a huge fan of his verse. Billy kills it as usual, but unfortunately he only has one verse on this track, which for almost 4 minutes features a surprisingly small amount of actual rapping. This track for me kind of like The Foriegner in that it feels like filler track. Again, a filler track by Billy Woods track is an amazing song overall, but it doesn't hit the same level of emotional power as a lot of the other tracks do.
Favorite Moment/Part: The chorus, “A day late and a dollar short / thanks for your support, yo let's pop this cork”
Human Resources
I'm a bit split on this track. There are a lot of parts that I really like, but on the other hand there are quite a few parts that I'm not a huge fan of. I really like the intro part, but I feel like it transitions into the full song really awkwardly. The intro part tends a lot more towards sad, while the regular song is a lot darker and more disturbing. And while I like most of the beat, the little pieces of female vocals that got stuck in there kind of rub me the wrong way. Some of the lyrics are absolutely amazing though, even more than usual. “the only problem with being your own god is you still gotta die” might be the best, although the whole song is sprinkled with very profound or even just really cool sounding lines. Not my favorite track, but it's pretty damn good.
Favorite Moment/Part: The line mentioned above, as well as the lyrics in general
The Wake
Goddamn. Where to even begin with this one? It's far and away my favorite track on the album, and probably one of my favorite tracks ever. The first time I heard it, on YouTube, I looped it for a straight 45 minutes. It's just so beautifully melancholy. The beat, again from Willie Green, features a simple, repeated piano line with some very hip-hop drums and a simple bass line underneath it. He also puts what sounds like either sneakers squeaking on a gym floor or some sort of whistle in the background that for some reason just screams sadness to me. Billy is at his least rant-y but most emotional, both lyrically and in terms of delivery. He seems to wander through his whole life in his mind, casting back to times that were mostly bad, and delivers some absolutely gorgeous lines. “10 years ago she was just some ho / 5 years after that, I'm in love / if you ask me today I could give a fuck” is quite possibly my favorite, although you could literally close your eyes and point to a line and I would love it. I actually named the blog I write after another amazing line in this song, “a dollar short and 24 hours late”. Ultimately though, there is really nothing that I can put into words that expresses how much this song hits me emotionally. There is no way to experience it other than to just sit and listen to it 3, 4, 5 times in a row and just letting the emotion soak its way into your ears.
Favorite Moment/Part: All of it
And there we have it. All 18 tracks. I certainly have my complaints, but this is one of my favorite albums of all time. What I think is really interesting about it is that it doesn't really have any sort of central theme other than Billy Woods. He manages to make these collection of tracks sound completely unified by injecting his passion and emotions into every track. That being said, I do feel that the album could have been a lot leaner. At 18 full tracks, it really drags on at times especially in the middle. Personally, I would have cut Freedman's Bureau, Nigerian Email, and Pump Up the Volume in an attempt to make this album a bit more punchy. While it's still a bit lengthy even without those tracks, I think the raw power of Billy Woods would be enough to tie it all together.
