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Eighth album 'Rising Down' keeps true to group's style, but offers surprises, musical guests
By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal music writer
Published on Sunday, May 18, 2008
It's been a long, hard road for the Roots, hip-hop's longest-running and only true band.
Fifteen years into its career, the respected Philadelphia group is still going strong, still challenging hip-hop conventions while building on its history, and still selling half the amount of less talented crews.
After sixth album Tipping Point, arguably its most consistently commercial outing, the band signed to Def Jam and released Game Theory, a strident, righteously indignant, guest-filled album that immediately calmed any fears that the ''legendary Roots crew'' had lost its way chasing the pop dollar.
So, when the crossover pop song Birthday Girl, featuring Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump, was leaked to the Internet as the possible first single from the new album Rising Down, many faithful fans were up in arms at the apparent betrayal. But stateside fans need not worry, as the tune didn't make the U.S. version of the album.
It's a wise choice by the group (and the label that wanted the song in the first place). While Birthday Girl isn't a bad song, its subject matter — our narrator falls for a fast-living 17-year-old with a fake I.D. — simply doesn't fit in with the rest of the album, which returns to the social and political questions and statements of Game Theory but with more varied musical backing.
Synthesizers are the big surprise on the album, as keyboardist Kamal has been riding the smooth, undulating sound of the Fender Rhodes for much of the band's career. The vintage synths provide much of the dark atmosphere and melodic touches.
The album also is guest-filled, with verses from Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Common, Styles P and associates, and former Roots members Dice Raw, Malik B and Porn. Main Roots rapper Tariq ''Black Thought'' Trotters is never lost in the mix, though.
With the band members all in their 30s, they apparently don't have much time to rap about product placement and the acquisition and exploitation of things or women. As they see it, the world is in dire straits and that trouble is manifested in their government, their neighborhoods and their lives.
After a short 15-year-old taped conference call of the band arguing with a former label rep to remind us they've paid more than their share of dues, the album begins with the world-in-peril title track that sets the tone for the entire album. Mos Def rips off one of his stronger verses in recent memory while hardcore rapper Styles P takes on the proliferation of prescription drugs. Black Thought's verse begins with global fears: ''Between the greenhouse gases and earth spinnin' off its axis / got mother nature doin' back flips / the natural disasters, it's like 80 degrees in Alaska / you in trouble if you're not an Onassis,'' and then worries about how he'll survive on his paycheck: ''they making me break, my contents under pressure / do not shake, I'm workin' while the boss relaxing / here come Mr. Tax Man he leavin' a fraction / give me back some.''
The album's outlook doesn't get much sunnier, but finds Thought and guests taking on the guises of regular people in irregular situations. On I Can't Help It, Thought, Malik B and relative newcomer Porn offer three vignettes of addiction over an oscillating synth squiggle and a syncopated groove. The band's latent pop leanings arise in the guitar-driven Criminal where Thought, Truck North and Saigon's protagonists resort to crime, not for street cred or fast money, but to survive.
Singing Man finds the emcees each taking on the guise of people committing violence out of frustration and hopelessness, including a teenage soldier in Sierra Leone, a depressed teen about to open fire on his schoolmates, and a righteous suicide bomber.
The news isn't all dire. Black Thought gives the fans what they want by displaying his lyrical skills on the one-take 75 Bars (Black's Reconstruction), and Get Busy, featuring scratches by fellow Philadelphian Jazzy Jeff, celebrates the group's hometown over a rock-hard beat.
Fifteen years, eight albums and near nonstop touring is a lengthy and impressive career in any music genre, but in rap years it's an eternity. With Rising Down, The Roots prove to longtime fans that they still have plenty to say and plenty of ways to get listeners to nod their heads or tap their feet.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.
It's been a long, hard road for the Roots, hip-hop's longest-running and only true band.
Get the full article here.
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