Last year, Lauryn Hill declared, “I treat this like my thesis,”
\nin her blockbuster
\nThe Miseducation of Lauryn Hill<\/i>. So, in the spirit of
\none-upsmanship, the band The Roots did one better this year. With
\ntheir latest album,
\nThings Fall Apart<\/i>, the band goes as far as to add footnotes
\nin their liner notes about the origins of each of their songs.<\/p>\n
It’s a neat gesture but it is by far not a novelty.
\nThings Fall Apart<\/i> wastes no time in persuading the listener
\nthat he or she is listening to an “important album.” The album
\nopens up with a snipit from the Spike Lee film,
\nMo Better Blues<\/i>, in which a debate rages on about the lack
\nof support blacks give to blues and jazz performers. Another voice
\ncriticizes the music industry for crudely marketing rap albums as
\nmerely product, not art. In essence, rap albums are not utilized.
\nTake note, No Limit Records, this attack may be partially directed
\nat you.<\/p>\n
The Roots already have an advantage over most of the rap acts
\nout there: they mostly rely on live instruments. The jazzy upright
\nbass and the full drumming style of ?uestlove give immediate impact
\non every track on
\nThings Fall Apart<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Like A Tribe Called Quest, The Roots are more interested in
\nbroadening listeners’ minds rather than extending their wallets.
\nAnd much like Quest, The Roots are not afraid to experiment. While
\nthe may feel at home in a jazz club, spouting off poetry, they are
\nnot afraid to show off their tougher image. In the mystic “Step
\nInto The Relm,” The Roots do a better Wu-Tang song than the band
\ndid on most of the tracks off their last double album.<\/p>\n
The band effortlessly hops from different genres in
\nThings Fall Apart<\/i>. The album closes (well, aside from the
\nhidden track) with a poetry slam with the band laying down a
\nsomber, moody backdrop. In “You Got Me,” Erykah Badu gives a
\nsooting voice over to a relationship that disintegrates as fast as
\nit bloomed. It is one of the most dead honest songs written about
\nrelationships in the past few years. The moral to the song: neither
\none was at fault for the failure, things just fell apart.<\/p>\n
Though some of the songs in
\nThings Fall Apart<\/i> are rooted in sadness, it doesn’t stop
\nmaking it the best album of the year so far to listen to with your
\nwindows down in your car on a beautiful summer day. “Dynamite!,”
\n“100% Dundee” and “The Next Movement” are fun, funky numbers that
\nwill resonate with nearly anyone with even a hint of feeling from
\ntheir waist down.<\/p>\n
Being a compulsive list maker, I can’t help but compare the
\nhip-hop\/rap movement of the past few years with the heavy metal
\nmovement about a decade ago. Just as people then thought heavy
\nmetal was dead, three albums seemingly rescued the genre from
\nextinction:
\nAppetite For Destruction<\/i> by Guns N’ Roses,
\nMaster Of Puppets<\/i> by Metallica and, for pop metal’s sake,
\nHysteria<\/i> by Def Leppard. Those three albums showed that
\nmetal could be commercially viable as well as add an undeniable
\nartistic integrity to them.<\/p>\n
In the same way, rap, though commercially viable, has come under
\nattack by purists and narrow-minded critics for being nothing more
\nthan bass-filler albums that do nothing more than pump empty ideas
\ninto listeners’ ears. With
\nThe Miseducaiton Of Lauryn Hill<\/i>, Outkast’s
\nAquemini<\/i> and
\nThings Fall Apart<\/i>, that argument has been silenced. Three
\ndifferent landmark albums, each one no doubt will stand the test of
\ntime for years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":27617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6822],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38992","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-roots","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38992"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}