The Bar

Get it at the TMB Store!

1. The Pow Wow
2. Rising Down featuring Mos Def & Styles P
3. Get Busy featuring Dice Raw & Peedi Peedi
4. @ 15
5. 75 Bars (Black’s Reconstruction)
6. Becoming Unwritten
7. Criminal featuring Truck North & Saigon
8. I Will Not Apologize featuring Porn & Dice Raw
9. I Can’t Help It featuring Malik B., Porn, Mercedes Martinez & Dice Raw
10. Singing Man featuring Porn, Truck North & Dice Raw
11. Unwritten featuring Mercedes Martinez
12. Lost Desire featuring Malik B. & Talib Kweli
13. The Show featuring Common & Dice Raw
14. Rising Up featuring Wale & Chrisette Michele
15. Birthday Girl (Bonus Track - Itunes only)
16. Pow Wow 2 (Bonus Track - Itunes only)

Official Bar Score: 

It’s hard to believe, but this is the tenth studio album from the Legendary Roots Crew. I jumped on their bandwagon for dear life with 1995’s “Do You Want More?!!!??!” which had a sound like no other and had me hooked. A hip hop BAND? At first it didn’t seem possible, as most of the production on the projects of the groups I loved around the time had been very sample heavy. Here was a crew that threw the whole sample thing out of the window, creating actual jazz backdrops using live instrumentation as opposed to jazz samples. They managed to be more “true to the art” than most, with an emcee in Black Thought that few can compare to, one of the best drummers in history (no matter what genre you are talking about) in ?uestlove, a legendary beatboxer in Rahzel (unfortunately no longer with the group), and a stage show that will probably go down in history as the best ever. Despite all of this, for the longest time The Roots were branded as “alternative rap” for no good reason, almost as if they were being punished for being original and bringing something fresh to the table.

Times have changed, and The Roots have worked with countless amounts of artists, put Philadelphia on the hip hop map, and basically strong armed the respect they deserve, allowing them to stay around and constantly change up their sound without anybody stopping them, ultimately resulting in “Rising Down”, their tenth studio album and their best one in a while. Staying true to form, The Roots altered their sound a bit again on this album, this time around going with a more drum and bass-ish influenced sound. This in turn gives the album their darkest sound to date, which fits well because lyrically Black Thought and company are in a very pessimistic political mood, and seem to have had enough of everything. Tracks like the intro skit “Pow Wow”, “Rising Down”, “Get Busy” and “I Will Not Apologize” all convey an anger heretofore unheard on previous projects, and even the smoother tracks like “Criminal” and “The Show” are pretty bleak lyrically. Simply put: unlike the majority of their catalog, “Rising Down” will not have you smiling much.

Don’t let that fool you though, it’s a great album. The production (as per usual) is better than 99.9 percent of anything you are likely to hear between now and the next album from The Roots, and despite the negative feel to most of the lyrics, Black Thought, even after ten albums, still sounds as smooth and hungry as he ever has. This is easily the best Roots album since “Phrenology”. ?uestlove stated “I want to be the first rap artist to actually make a good 10th record, that’s my goal.” He was successful. Stand out tracks are: “75 Bars (Black’s Reconstruction)”, “Rising Up”, and “Get Busy”.

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