The 19th Best Album of 2025
Wew we have made it to the teens! It's heating up now, boyz. An artist already on the list kickin it solo style starts the teens off. It's Billy Woods with his record Golliwog.
I already talked about Woods in the Armand Hammer post (and ELUCID does feature on three tracks here, so the connection is strong). This album is dark. Atmospherically, lyrically, even the album art is kinda creepy. Woods and his producers did an incredible job shaping this album. The lyrics focus primarily on racism both here and abroad, and both the current racial landscape and how we got here, dismissal of chattel slavery and neo-colonialism. Honestly these lyrics are way too dense for me to compound on here only having listened to the album a handful of times.
I do think the album has some ups and downs along its 52 minute runtime, and as previously mentioned Woods' albums just aren't something I'm going to put on and listen to frequently. Especially one as heavy hitting as this. But, this is still an immensely impressive and important album, more than worthy of multiple listens to really explore and dig into the themes and messaging.