Today, the New York-based rapper billy woods announces GOLLIWOG, an unearthly and unsettling new album due out May 9 via Backwoodz Studioz. Influenced by MF DOOM as well as 20th century sci-fi and horror authors like Ray Bradbury and Toni Morrison, GOLLIWOG incorporates elements of horror, humor, surrealism, and Afropessism into a distinctive danse macabre.

As woods explains: “When I was nine years old I wrote a story about an evil golliwog. My mother read it and told me it was overly derivative and needed some work. Here we are.”

Populated by conjurations straight from its narrator’s own uncanny imagination, it’s got all the elements of a woods classic: African zombies, time traveling trap cars, malevolent ragdolls, and a dying Frantz Fanon. It’s another triumph in the woods oeuvre, as layered and compelling as anything he has ever done.

Accompanying the album announcement is “Misery,” a haunting and prismatic lead track produced by Kenny Segal.

Listen to “Misery” here.

GOLLIWOG’s bewitching, cinematic tapestry is brought to life with the help of a murderer’s row of producers and collaborators. The album features production from The Alchemist, Kenny Segal, EL-P, Conductor Williams, Preservation, Messiah Musik, Sadhugold, Ant (Atmosphere), Shabaka Hutchings, Steel Tipped Dove, DJ Haram, Willie Green, Jeff Markey, Saint Abdullah, and LA-based experimental jazz trio Human Error Club. woods is joined on the mic by Backwoodz labelmates ELUCID and Cavalier, along with rappers Bruiser Wolf, Despot, Al.Divino, and singer-songwriter Yolanda Watson.

billy woods will be supporting GOLLIWOG with an extensive itinerary of live performances throughout 2025. He will be debuting GOLLIWOG tracks live throughout this week at SXSW in Austin. He has also announced 30+ live dates throughout Europe and North America. See full dates below, more details here.

GOLLIWOG is billy woods’ first album in two years, preceded by 2023’s Maps, his acclaimed second collaboration with Kenny Segal. Pitchfork called it “a masterful road-trip album,” while Rolling Stone deemed it “a dizzying listen…the kind of album that’s designed to get you lost.”

In 2024, Armand Hammer — woods’ “formidable” (New York Times) duo project with ELUCID — released We Buy Diabetic Test Strips, which The Needle Drop described as “on another level” and The Observer (UK) designated “an exceptional record [that] deserves your full attention.”