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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Very few hip-hop groups make it to their fourth full-length recording, and perhaps only the Roots have made it to that level while still ascending. Although lyrical and musical vision is sorely lacking from most hip-hop (as Puff and Master P have proved, vision isn't necessary to bum-rush the mainstream goldmine), such qualities are cornerstones of the Roots' music. Their second recording, 1995's Do You Want More?, and its follow-up, 1996's Illadelph Halflife, intelligently linked hip-hop to its musical forebears funk and jazz, and their lyrics provided unique, post-nationalist hip-hop critiques. On Things Fall Apart (named for the Chinua Achebe novel) the sextet takes on a more sombre tone, but at no cost to their musical innovations. "If we had to depend on black people to eat, we'd starve to death," says Denzel Washington, sampled from Mo' Better Blues, at the outset of the recording. It's not self-pity--rather, the group frequently returns to the theme of how many African Americans confuse uniformity with unity. Musically, the group is at its best with guests such as Mos Def and Talib Kweli from Black Star contributing some old-school fun and technique to "Double Trouble". Erykah Badu's supple vocals on "You Got Me" are offset by innovative percussion, including an organically developed jungle beat. At a point when most rappers are running on fumes, the Roots are synthesising new ideas. --Martin Johnson
CD Description
Hip-hop is about presence. Whether party- or street-oriented, it tends to keeps its listeners firmly centred in their own skin: hands in the air, guard your grill, watch your back. In spite of the blunted ethos of the late '90s and the emergence of trip-hop, it's a rare hip-hop record that causes your eyes to go out of focus and your brain to operate freelyin that space that makes us describe music as "deep".
THINGS FALL APART achieves that distinct sort of transcendenceperhaps because it is not trying to save, reinvigorate, or resurrect the artform. As the title (taken from Chinua Achebe's novel on the loss of traditional African culture during colonisation) suggests, the record takes the death of hip-hop as its starting point. Where earlier Roots albums capturedthe live feeling of the open mic/jam sessions for which they are now internationally famous, TFA adds a newer wrinkle of arrangement and studio mastery. The layers and echoes occasionally (as on "100% Dundee") give you the sensation that you're wandering through one of those jam sessions in a detached, even feverish state--a perfect snapshot of hip-hop on the eve of the millennium.
Very few hip-hop groups make it to their fourth full-length recording, and perhaps only the Roots have made it to that level while still ascending. Although lyrical and musical vision is sorely lacking from most hip-hop (as Puff and Master P have proved, vision isn't necessary to bum-rush the mainstream goldmine), such qualities are cornerstones of the Roots' music. Their second recording, 1995's Do You Want More?, and its follow-up, 1996's Illadelph Halflife, intelligently linked hip-hop to its musical forebears funk and jazz, and their lyrics provided unique, post-nationalist hip-hop critiques. On Things Fall Apart (named for the Chinua Achebe novel) the sextet takes on a more sombre tone, but at no cost to their musical innovations. "If we had to depend on black people to eat, we'd starve to death," says Denzel Washington, sampled from Mo' Better Blues, at the outset of the recording. It's not self-pity--rather, the group frequently returns to the theme of how many African Americans confuse uniformity with unity. Musically, the group is at its best with guests such as Mos Def and Talib Kweli from Black Star contributing some old-school fun and technique to "Double Trouble". Erykah Badu's supple vocals on "You Got Me" are offset by innovative percussion, including an organically developed jungle beat. At a point when most rappers are running on fumes, the Roots are synthesising new ideas. --Martin Johnson
CD Description
Hip-hop is about presence. Whether party- or street-oriented, it tends to keeps its listeners firmly centred in their own skin: hands in the air, guard your grill, watch your back. In spite of the blunted ethos of the late '90s and the emergence of trip-hop, it's a rare hip-hop record that causes your eyes to go out of focus and your brain to operate freelyin that space that makes us describe music as "deep".
THINGS FALL APART achieves that distinct sort of transcendenceperhaps because it is not trying to save, reinvigorate, or resurrect the artform. As the title (taken from Chinua Achebe's novel on the loss of traditional African culture during colonisation) suggests, the record takes the death of hip-hop as its starting point. Where earlier Roots albums capturedthe live feeling of the open mic/jam sessions for which they are now internationally famous, TFA adds a newer wrinkle of arrangement and studio mastery. The layers and echoes occasionally (as on "100% Dundee") give you the sensation that you're wandering through one of those jam sessions in a detached, even feverish state--a perfect snapshot of hip-hop on the eve of the millennium.
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