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**Armand Hammer - Race Music ★★★★☆**

In the grand tradition of hip-hop duos who burn bright and flame out, Armand Hammer's dissolution in 2023 felt both inevitable and tragic. Billy Woods and ELUCID had spent nearly a decade crafting some of the most uncompromising, intellectually rigorous rap music of the 2010s and early 2020s, only to watch their partnership crumble under the weight of creative differences and the relentless grind of underground touring. Their final album, the appropriately titled "Farewell," was a bitter pill – all jagged edges and recriminations. But to understand how we got there, you have to go back to 2013's "Race Music," the album that established their template for cerebral, confrontational hip-hop and remains their most cohesive artistic statement.

"Race Music" emerged from the fertile Brooklyn underground scene that also birthed artists like Milo and Open Mike Eagle, but Armand Hammer always felt like the most dangerous proposition in that crew. Where their contemporaries often wrapped their intellectualism in quirky humor or nostalgic warmth, Woods and ELUCID served up their philosophy straight, no chaser. The album's title alone was a provocation – a reclamation of the dismissive term once used to categorize Black music, transformed into a badge of honor and a mission statement.

Musically, the duo carved out a niche somewhere between Death Grips' industrial chaos and Roc Marciano's minimalist street poetry. Producer Messiah Musik, working under his early alias "The Archivist," crafted beats that sounded like they were recorded in abandoned warehouses and forgotten basements. Samples crackle with vinyl hiss, drums hit with the weight of sledgehammers, and melodic elements drift in and out like half-remembered dreams. It's boom-bap deconstructed and reassembled by someone who'd spent too much time reading Foucault and listening to Godflesh.

The album's opening track, "Dettol," remains a masterclass in controlled aggression. Over a lurching, off-kilter beat built from what sounds like a slowed-down gospel sample fed through a wood chipper, Woods delivers dense, imagistic verses about urban decay and systemic oppression with the casual authority of a tenured professor who's also survived multiple shootings. ELUCID follows with his trademark stream-of-consciousness flow, words tumbling over each other in a rush of righteous anger and hard-won wisdom.

"Barbershop" might be the closest thing to a single here, with its almost-catchy hook and relatively straightforward structure, but even this concession to accessibility comes wrapped in layers of cultural criticism and personal trauma. The track's discussion of Black masculinity and community spaces feels both intimate and universal, a quality that would become Armand Hammer's calling card.

The album's centerpiece, "Race Music (Intermission)," strips away all pretense for a seven-minute meditation on identity, history, and the weight of representation. Woods' opening lines – "They want us to sing for our supper / But we'd rather starve than perform" – could serve as the duo's manifesto. It's here that their chemistry becomes most apparent; where other rap partnerships rely on contrasting styles, Woods and ELUCID complement each other like two sides of the same damaged coin.

"Roaches" closes the album with apocalyptic imagery and biblical fury, building to a climax that feels less like an ending than a beginning. In retrospect, it was both – the start of a remarkable run that would include collaborations with Earl Sweatshirt and Quelle Chris, critical acclaim from Pitchfork and The Wire, and a devoted cult following. But it was also the beginning of the tensions that would eventually tear them apart.

Ten years later, "Race Music" sounds like a transmission from a parallel universe where hip-hop never sold out, where complexity was rewarded over catchiness, and where two brilliant, difficult artists could sustain a partnership built on mutual respect rather than commercial necessity. Woods has gone on to a successful solo career, while ELUCID has retreated from the spotlight entirely, reportedly working on a novel. Neither has matched the focused intensity they achieved together on this remarkable debut.

In an era of playlist culture and algorithmic recommendations, "Race Music" remains defiantly analog – an album that demands to be heard front to back, preferably through headphones, preferably alone