After receiving mass appeal throughout 2011 as the house band of the Jimmy Fallon Show, the Roots released the Grammy nominated LP, How I Got Over; a Hip-Hop musical masterpiece. After producing a body of work at the finest level of the art, the group seemed poised to deliver another album that had the potential to push the Roots among the names of Outkast and A Tribe Called Quest.
The Philadelphia-based Hip-Hop Jazz group has made a name for themselves by being one of the few “bands” in Hip-Hop history and easily the only Hip-Hop band obtaining any worldwide success and distribution. The sounds of true instruments and real vocalist on original choruses (instead of sampled records) have become the hallmark of the group’s success and uniqueness. The lead emcee, Black Thought, seems to improve with age, becoming easily one of the most underrated emcees of all-time. With so many positive features, it’s difficult for the album titled, Undun to miss the mark for musical ingenuity.
The intro begins and ends without a clear motive, but slides into the first song rather smoothly. The album begins with the song Sleepwhere just the mere sound of Black Thought over a ?uestlove produced track picks up your day. However, the drums don’t come in until the song titled Make Mywhere Black Thought Explains:
Whatever, see it’s really just a matter of semantics
When everybody’s fresh out of collateral to damage
And, my plan got me praying like a mantis
I begin to vanish, feel the pull of a blank canvas
I’m contemplating that a special dedication
To whomever it concerns, my letter of resignation
Fadin’ back the black, my dark coronation
The heat of the day, the long robe in word take
That soul in the atmosphere like air play
If there is heaven I can’t find the stair way
After a very slow start, the album picks up with some soulful, jazzy tunes in Kool On, The Other Side, and Lighthouse where Black Thought draws the disappear comparison of having loss in your life to being out in the ocean:
After the love is lost, friendship dissolve
And even blood is lost
Way that it began, the way we did each other wrong
Troubled water neither one of us could swim across
I stopped holding my breath, now am I better off?
Yeah, without a trace and you in my head in all
The hunted motion of a rebel without a pause
What in do is done, to you in dead in gone
The Grim Reaper telling me to swim deeper
Where the people go to low and behold, the soul keeper
I’m not even breaking out in a sweat, a cold fever
But I’m never paying up on my debt or tolls either
I leave the memories here, I won’t need ‘em
If I stop thinking the lie, now that’s freedom
None of the album’s features were really commendable; not even the fallen Phonte of The Foreign Exchange (and now defunct Little Brother) made a noteworthy appearance. The album ends with a fury of hardcore Hip-Hop jazzy instrumentals that probably weren’t appeasing to none one but the most abstract jazz fans.
You never really capture the “Undun” theme throughout the entire album unless the Roots were telling us they are “dun” themselves. If that’s the case, you would have hoped to have been left with something a lot better.
Album Ratings -
Lyrics: 15 of 20
Production: 17 of 20
Creativity: 14 of 20
Theme: 8 of 20
Consistency: 10 of 20
Rating Scale -
Trash:
Weak: 50-59
***Average: 60-69
Solid: 70-79
Premium: 80-89
Elite: 90-97
Masterpiece: 90-100 (and at least three 20 of 20 rating)
Only the most avid fans of the Roots would enjoy this album fully. Although it had some high points, this is only average work from an above average group.
--Deandre P
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