Woods and his cohorts (but especially Woods) do not rap like other rappers. The phrases end with rhymes, sure; but the delivery is only slightly tethered to the groove. Like an expert jazz soloist, the performers’ cadences wander off time only to land seamlessly back into place. The lyrics are not typical either. They eschew conventional storytelling. Instead, they get the point via imagery, turns of phrase, and esoteric references.

I thought maybe it had been a full moon but it wasn’t, and anyway, I don’t know shit about what that means. You used to talk a lot about the phases of the moon, the stars’ place, Mercury and its retrograde, but I never really understood anything about what they meant. Maybe I didn’t listen well enough when you talked about things you were passionate about, a considerable regret.

Soup Plate. White and pure. Thrown like a frisbee at back of husband’s head, husband who had just become a father. A flying saucer arced the air, approaching its target with an edge, thin and obtuse. Plate shattered at contact with the base of his skull, by the hardness of the husband-father’s head. Later, sweeping the shards, post-partum belt pressing into my belly, husband left, stayed mad for days, maybe years. “You could have brain-damaged me!” he said.