Rising Down

^{Originally published on Realbuzz.com}

In 1999, The Roots came out
with a double-disc live album, The Roots Come Alive, with songs
culled from performances in Switzerland, New York, and various other
locations. Rising Down, the group’s tenth album — second
since Jay-Z brought them over to Def Jam Records — is in many ways
more live than that release. Throughout, we are treated to a number
of interludes, speeches, and instrumental shifts reminiscent of a Roots
concert. A somewhat grungy tone pervades, as if the band went in, played
their instruments, and the tracks made it to the album without too much
tinkering (that’s what it sounds like, though I doubt it’s true…).
The result is something somehow personal, as if we are witnessing the
album, instead of just listening to it.

The usual cast of cameos makes
its appearances — Common, Dice Raw, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, among others.
But really, as all Roots fans know, Black Thought emerges as the most
impressive. The only other rapper I can think of that has a flow as
natural and entertaining as Black Thought’s is Ghostface Killah. I’m
not sure if it’s a function of their having been MCs for so long,
or if they’ve always been able to rap this way, but it really seems
as if they’re just talking, and what they’re saying happens to rhyme.
Nowhere is Black Thought more impressive than on "75 Bars (Black’s
Reconstruction)": "Show me a puppet without a puppeteer/I’m in
the fields with a shield and a spear/I’m in your girl with her heels
in the air." It’s a free-association track on African American
identity that rivals Beck for Rorschach-like complexity.

Because The Roots play their
own instruments, instead of relying on samples and looped beats, their
sound is often much fuller and more organic than most other rap music.
It’s not without its jarring qualities – sometimes it’s strange
to hear that rock-style electric guitar cutting through a rhythm. But
the band members, led by visionary drummer ?uestlove, by now have developed
such chemistry that at times it really seems they can do anything with
their respective instruments. (Last time I saw them in concert, they
reproduced Mims’ "This Is Why I’m Hot.")

Though much of their ouvre
is phenomenal, very little of it is actually marketable. Usually, though,
The Roots will deign to reserve four minutes of each album for a radio-friendly
song. On Phrenology we got "Break You Off"; The Tipping
Point gave us "Star" and "Don’t Say Nuthin’"; and
Game Theory brought the shoulda-been-huge "Don’t Feel Right."
(And of course, "You Got Me" from Things Fall Apart sort
of defined their careers- but that entire album is so classic I prefer
not to single out any song as better than the others.) Likewise, on
Rising Down, The Roots have given us "Rising Up."

It begins with some soft female
vocals:

"Yesterday I saw a B-Girl
crying, and I walked up and asked ‘what’s wrong?’

She said the radio’s been
playing the same song all day long.

I told her I got something
you been waiting for

I got something you been waiting
for!"

Then Black Thought jumps in
with his non-stop spit-fire lyrics, delivering exactly what the song
promises – something different from anything else out there, but still
incredibly exciting. Beneath the vocals, there’s an ocean of drums
that sounds like the guys in Washington Square Park banging on upside-down
paint cans — a sound that, for whatever reason, never fails to elicit
adrenaline.

By no means is Rising Down
the easiest or prettiest album to listen to. The Roots demand some attention,
and even some thought, from their fans. But they have a mission, namely
to make music that they want to make, unadulterated by others’ interests,
and the craftsmanship they put into their tunes is visceral, and worthy
of our time.