Each month in the magazine we play an artist or group a series of tracks which they are asked to comment on – with no prior knowledge of what they are about to hear.

In The Wire 496 it is the turn of rap artist and founder of Backwoodz Studioz billy woods.

Here you can listen to a mix of the tracks our correspondent Mosi Reeves played to woods during the interview, which is published in full in The Wire 496. To find out what woods said about them, subscribers can read the interview in our online magazine library here. Or you can buy a copy of the magazine in our online shop.

But first, a brief biography of our subject:

billy woods is a central figure in the underground rap scene. His work not only addresses the tensions of surviving and sustaining himself as a noncorporate, self-employed musician, but also meditates on modern life, the vagaries of romance, the struggle of immigrant communities in the US, and leftist political theory. As a proud creature of hiphop, woods engages in vivid wordplay stuffed with B-boy in-jokes, nods to pop culture and a wry yet anguished perspective. His songs are often complexly rendered, leaving them ripe for (mis)interpretation.

He uses a nom de plume and strives to hide his face in photographs. He was born in Washington, DC to a Jamaican mother and a Zimbabwean father, both academics. When he was a child, his family moved to Zimbabwe so his father could support the country’s new post-independence government under Robert Mugabe. After his father died, woods and his mother returned to the US. He briefly attended college before involving himself in the nascent underground hiphop scene, particularly the innovative New York crew Atoms Family led by Cryptic One and two of its leading lights, Vordul Mega and Vast Aire – the duo who later formed Cannibal Ox and, with rapper/producer El-P, made the 2001 classic The Cold Vein.

Forming his own imprint Backwoodz Studioz, woods struggled for over a decade to develop an audience before finally achieving a modest breakthrough with 2012’s History Will Absolve Me. Its cover, which defiantly references a quote from Mugabe’s controversial three decades reign as Zimbabwe’s autocratic leader, signalled woods’s growth as an erudite satirist. Subsequent years and solo albums as well as Armand Hammer – his pairing with New York rapper Chaz ‘Elucid’ Hall – and a growing Backwoodz roster brought increasing international acclaim. New album Golliwog, his first in two years, addresses the horrors of modern life in explicit and subtle themes, from the Scream movie franchise to voodoo dolls. Outside of the rap universe, woods has collaborated with The Kronos Quartet, Shabaka Hutchings and Richie Culver.

This Invisible Jukebox was conducted via Zoom, in advance of Golliwog’s release and an accompanying world tour.

billy woods’s Invisible Jukebox playlist (with timestamps)

Vast Aire (00:00)
“Adversity Strikes”
From The Persecution Of Hip Hop
(Centrifugal Phorce) 1998

Laurel Aitken (03:54)
“Stupid Maried Man”
From Scandal In A Brixton Market
(Economy/Pama) 1969

Sam Waymon (07:21)
“The Blood Of The Thing (Part 1)”
From Ganja & Hess: Original 1973 Motion Picture Soundtrack
(Strange Disc) 2018

Mike Ladd (12:49)
“I’m Building A Bodacious Bodega For The Race War”
From Easy Listening 4 Armageddon
(Scratchie) 1997

Elaine Brown (17:56)
“Seize The Time”
From Seize The Time
(Vault) 1969

Point Blank (20:13)
“After I Die (DJ Screw Remix)”
From Bigtyme Volume II: All Screwed Up
(Bigtyme Recordz) 1995

cLOUDDEAD (29:19)
“Dead Dogs Two (Boards Of Canada Remix)”
From Dead Dogs Two 12"
(Big Dada/Mush) 2004