Biography
Armand Hammer, the duo formed by art rap innovators billy woods and ELUCID, has earned widespread acclaim through introspective bars and boundary-pushing beats. Across their joint work, which runs parallel to individual pursuits, the pair issued three full-length projects during the 2010s, drawing notice for the ambitious scope of Rome (2017) and Paraffin (2018). Subsequent releases included the Alchemist-assisted Haram (2021) and the live-instrument-driven We Buy Diabetic Test Strips (2023).
billy woods first connected meaningfully with New York’s ELUCID while assembling the 2012 album History Will Absolve Me, inviting the MC onto fourteen of its eighteen cuts and thereby revealing an immediate creative rapport. Operating as Armand Hammer, the two quickly tested that rapport on the 2013 mixtape Half Measures, spurring one another toward fresh approaches in delivery and storytelling. Their first proper album, Race Music, appeared a month afterward; beats from Marmaduke, Messiah Musik, and DOS4GW steered the project away from conventional boom-bap toward unconventional textures and gritty, off-balance arrangements. Dense rhyme patterns and layered metaphors carried verses that ranged from material hardship to abstract inquiry, blending autobiographical fragments with imagined detail into incisive social commentary.
The Furtive Movements EP (2014) closed the initial trilogy by adding further cuts, revisions, and reinterpretations that solidified the Armand Hammer identity. Following that release, the pair stepped back from the name for several years, though they continued appearing on each other’s solo efforts—Today, I Wrote Nothing (2015), Save Yourself (2016), and Known Unknowns (2017)—before reuniting under the moniker in late 2017. Rome arrived that November, sharpening the earlier sound with cleaner, subtly electronic elements and guest spots from Quelle Chris, Mach-Hommy, and Denmark Vessey; the project landed on numerous year-end lists. Paraffin followed in 2018, extending the same modernized underground aesthetic and attracting still broader praise. Shrines, their fourth album, surfaced in 2020.
In 2021 the duo linked with producer the Alchemist for Haram. A limited-edition vinyl compilation, WHT LBL, appeared the next year in a run of five hundred copies. Fat Possum Records then issued We Buy Diabetic Test Strips in 2023, a jazz-tinged set featuring contributions from Shabaka Hutchings, JPEGMAFIA, El-P, and DJ Haram.
billy woods first connected meaningfully with New York’s ELUCID while assembling the 2012 album History Will Absolve Me, inviting the MC onto fourteen of its eighteen cuts and thereby revealing an immediate creative rapport. Operating as Armand Hammer, the two quickly tested that rapport on the 2013 mixtape Half Measures, spurring one another toward fresh approaches in delivery and storytelling. Their first proper album, Race Music, appeared a month afterward; beats from Marmaduke, Messiah Musik, and DOS4GW steered the project away from conventional boom-bap toward unconventional textures and gritty, off-balance arrangements. Dense rhyme patterns and layered metaphors carried verses that ranged from material hardship to abstract inquiry, blending autobiographical fragments with imagined detail into incisive social commentary.
The Furtive Movements EP (2014) closed the initial trilogy by adding further cuts, revisions, and reinterpretations that solidified the Armand Hammer identity. Following that release, the pair stepped back from the name for several years, though they continued appearing on each other’s solo efforts—Today, I Wrote Nothing (2015), Save Yourself (2016), and Known Unknowns (2017)—before reuniting under the moniker in late 2017. Rome arrived that November, sharpening the earlier sound with cleaner, subtly electronic elements and guest spots from Quelle Chris, Mach-Hommy, and Denmark Vessey; the project landed on numerous year-end lists. Paraffin followed in 2018, extending the same modernized underground aesthetic and attracting still broader praise. Shrines, their fourth album, surfaced in 2020.
In 2021 the duo linked with producer the Alchemist for Haram. A limited-edition vinyl compilation, WHT LBL, appeared the next year in a run of five hundred copies. Fat Possum Records then issued We Buy Diabetic Test Strips in 2023, a jazz-tinged set featuring contributions from Shabaka Hutchings, JPEGMAFIA, El-P, and DJ Haram.
Albums
We Buy Diabetic Test Strips
2023
Haram
2021
Paraffin (Instrumentals)
2020
Paraffin
2018
Rome
2017
Race Music
2013
Singles
