The most shocking reinvention of a ’90s conscious rapper since Zev Love X became MF DOOM, Ishmael Butler revealed himself to be the rare kind of artist who gets more forward-looking the older he gets, aging from the throwback jazz-rap bohemian Digable Planets into an Emerald City Afrofuturism in Shabazz Palaces. Start at the beginning with their two ’09 EPs — especially this 20-minute dose of poetic astral swagger — and you’ll be prepped for the ensuing decade-plus of language-reinventing, defiantly alive work to follow.