Shabazz Palaces – Ahh World (I Won The Alpha Bet)

Although not in first person, Ishmael Butler relates his narrative on “Ahh World (I Won The Alpha Bet). He tells himself in the third, an all-knowing voice following his ascent to excellence as if it were already myth. Butler has room to be as flamboyant as he wants thanks to the fantasy framing, but the song keeps circling back to something far simpler, a closing list of instructions all pointing toward honour over hype.

The track is the first single from It’s a Style Sport, Shabazz Palaces’ eighth album, out October 23 on Sub Pop. It’s the first full-length since 2023’s Robed in Rareness and 2024’s Exotic Birds of Prey, and the sound here picks up threads from across Butler’s catalog: woozy synths, skittering low-end, that unhurried delivery he’s had since Black Up. Butler and Erik Blood produced the record, recorded between Brooklyn, Seattle and Los Angeles, with guest spots from Marquette Miller, Thaddeus “Thaddillac” Turner, Evan Flory-Barnes, Gerald “Tugboat” Turner, Kassa Overall and Carlos Overall.