For years now, the New York rapper billy woods has working at an insanely high level, both as a solo artist and as one half of Armand Hammer. Last year, for instance, woods released two solo albums, Aethiopes and Church. Both are excellent. This spring, woods is coming back with another new LP, and this one reunites him with producer Kenny Segal. Those guys work really, really well together.

In 2019, billy woods and Kenny Segal released the bleak, vivid, excellent collaborative album Hiding Places. It was one of my favorite albums that came out that year. The idea of ranking billy woods albums seems like a ridiculous thing to do, since they’re all in conversation with one another. But if I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be Hiding Places. In May, woods and Segal will follow that album with a new one called Maps. Thus far, woods and Segal haven’t shared any advance music, and we also don’t have the tracklist. But it’s coming.

Another thing that’s coming: billy woods and Kenny Segal are touring together for the first time. Check out the dates below:

TOUR DATES:
5/10 – Los Angeles, CA @ Resident
5/12 – Los Angeles, CA @ Resident
5/13 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
5/15 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile
5/16 – Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall
6/01 – Boston, MA @ Crystal Ballroom
6/01 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right
6/02 – Washington, DC @ DC9
6/12 – London, UK @ Village Underground
6/15 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Bitterzoet

billy woods is also doing some festival dates without Segal:

6/06 – Marina di Ravenna, Italy @ Beaches Brew Festival
6/09 – Katowice, Poland @ Tauron Festival
6/10 – Helsinki, Finland @ Sideways Festival
6/28 – Roskilde, Denmark @ Roskilde Festival

Maps is out 5/5 on Backwoodz Studioz.