Amazon.co.uk Review
Typically, we're better off ignoring the boasts of a rapper who claims to describe his own music, but when the Roots' lead voice Black Thought opens up his group's debut album by saying, "You are all about to witness some organic hip-hop jazz," it's a good idea to listen up. Organic is a fitting adjective for a hip-hop crew whose m.o. is as different from the typical studio-locked DJ/MC combo as grass is to Astroturf.
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
CD Description
As the hip-hop nation grew, it was natural for jazz groovesto play an integral part of its evolution. From DJs spinning Sonny Rollins loops over beats, to rappers vocally challenging seasoned soloists (as Guru did with trumpeter Don Cherry), the initial burst of energy that a new-found jazz influence gave to hip-hop was like a blood transfusion, providing for a healthier long-term existence. With DO YOU WANT MORE?!!!??!, the Roots up the ante on all the jazz-tip outfits that have rolled out before them, fully integrating a live bandwith the rappers, and kicking a funky rhyme like it hasn't been kicked before...and at the Montreaux Jazz Festival, no less.
The Philadelphia quartet--MCs Black Thought and Malik B., bassist Hub, and drummer B.R.O. The R.?--treat the vocalists as simply two more instrumentalists, and thus as equal elements to the overall sound. The rappers carry the mic with a singular funky swing, comfortable in any flow settingbut often mirroring the verbal interplay of A Tribe Called Quest (whom they also name-check); and the rhythm section drops its own share of bombs, when they're not busy laying down grooves for the likes of Steve Coleman and other additional players. The space heats up quickest when Black Thought and Malik use the band as a springboard for interactive flurries, and play directly off them (the live, freestyle grind, "Essay Whuman?!!??"). When such genuine moments of improvisation arise, the Roots seem like they're miles ahead of everybody else on hip-hop's jazz fusion highway.
![Reflection Eternal [Train Of Thought]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61h%2BV4lSf0L._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
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