I first heard of Billy Woods through Dean Van Nguyen, music journalist and now author who’s a longtime friend of the site. He graciously sent us this Q&A with Billy in 2009. Earlier this year, Billy released Hiding Places, produced by Kenny Segal, containing songs that probably got the most plays, and certainly resonated most with me. “Red Dust” is Frantz Fanon with a megaphone over Fan Dam era EL-P.
Woods is really settling into his voice and delivery, comfortable with annunciation; he’s more sparse now but takes bigger chomps of the beat. Yet he’s still no less a mystery now as he was in Dean’s 2009 interview, but I did my best to learn more about him as a writer, label chief, and mind behind 2019’s best rap project.
I spoke with Billy pretty in-depth for Okayplayer; Read it HERE.
