Billy Woods | Golliwog

With GOLLIWOG, billy woods delivers one of the most conceptually bold and sonically haunting records of his already storied career. GOLLIWOG stands as a gripping exploration of memory, mythology, and the grotesque legacies of colonialism. Drawing from a disturbing childhood story involving a golliwog doll, woods weaves a tracklist of dystopian parables, blending horrorcore aesthetics with abstract poetics and razor-edged political insight.

The album’s production lineup reads like a who’s who of avant-garde hip hop: The Alchemist, El‑P, Kenny Segal, Messiah Musik, Preservation, Steel Tipped Dove, and Shabaka Hutchings all contribute, conjuring dense, unsettling atmospheres that move between jazz, ambient noise, and fractured boom bap. Guests like Despot, ELUCID, Bruiser Wolf, al.divino, Cavalier and Yoland Watson help populate the album’s surreal world, lending it the texture of a literary anthology set to sound.

Critics have hailed GOLLIWOG as yet another masterstroke from one of the most prolific and critically acclaimed hip-hop artists of today. For over two decades, billy woods has built a reputation as one of hip hop’s most uncompromising and visionary voices. Through solo work and as half of the duo Armand Hammer, he has cultivated a fiercely loyal audience and a critically respected discography that refuses easy categorization. With GOLLIWOG, he once again challenges the limits of the genre—blurring the lines between autobiography, fiction, and social commentary in a way only he can.