The foreboding ambience of "Never" recalls Massive Attack's haunting melodies, while the bluesy "Black Rock" (using the same sample Black Milk deployed on "Deadly Medley") and gospel-tinged "Understand" highlight the album's sonically gritty undertones. &TYSYC retains a resolutely theatrical and experimental bent. Picking up from the orchestral suite that ended undun. The hard-won triumphs detailed on 2009's How I Got Over in the afterglow of Obama's historic first presidential victory have given way to the narratives on undun and now …And then You Shoot Your Cousin that find the Roots casting critical eyes on theories of a post-racial society, manifesting the voices and the experiences of those whose reality couldn't be further away from late-night television joviality. So naturally, now that the Philadelphia hip-hop group has recently completed their absorption into "middle America" by becoming the house band on The Tonight Show, the group retains this tension in the form of their most challenging and arguably most polarizing album to date, …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin. As the Roots have become more visible and successful, their last few album projects have become increasingly sombre affairs.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |