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Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Nothing wrong with a little artificial grazeland, of course, but the Roots are making tasty roughage that blooms into real songs, where raps wind around bass, drums, keys, and horns, and where instruments coil up to voice cadences--where music and lyrics meet and grow together naturally, not coincidentally. You can hear the Roots' heart pump hardest when they pull off the things loops and samples cannot: just check the vocal/instrument interchanges of "Essaywhuman?!!!??!" or the left-turn instrumental digression midway through "Mellow My Man" to witness the living sounds of rap.
The Roots' Philadelphia-based groove collective build slick acid jazz playing around the smooth East Coast rhyming of A Tribe Called Quest and wild West Coast freestyling to create sounds as formless and fluid as jazz, but never unrecognisable as hip-hop. The music picks up where the mad scatting and melodic trills of L.A.'s defunct Freestyle Fellowship left off, and wakes up the tired hype of jazz/rap cross-pollination to new possibilities. The roots of this kind of fusion have long been around, though perhaps these Roots are hope for a new dawning. --Roni Sarig
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Customer Reviews
There are so many notable songs on this album it is hard to pick one or two to talk about. The stand-out track on the album, in my humble opinion, is probably the title song, with it's rolling bagpipe soundscape (yes bagpipes being used in a hip-hop context), it's head-nodding hook reminiscent of old-school classics, the a-capella vocal scratching and great Thought verse. Another fantastic track is the remade Essaywhuman?!!!??! which first appeared on Organix, with Black Thought 'duelling' with live instruments.
The album maintains a flow throughout, probably due to the laid back drum beats, and sparsely produced melodies. Getting softer towards the end, with a fore-runner of 'You Got Me'-style track 'Silent Treatment'.
If you have listened to any of the later Roots catalogue, and enjoyed it, or in fact like fellow Okayplayer artists Common, Reflection Eternal, etc then you should buy this album. It is jazzier than Things Fall Apart, similar-yet-better than Illadelph Halflife, and a great notice of the evolution of the Roots' sound when compared to Phrenology (or other ?uestlove produced albums eg Like Water For Chocolate).
People use the word improvement when describing the Roots' releases, but as they have all been of a high standard, it should be seen as a progression of sound.
Get Blackstar, Train of Thought, Can I Borrow A Dollar?, Resurrection, All ATCQ, A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing, J5 LP and Exit as soon as possible.
Must have album
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