undun

I've always been a big Roots crew fan. Black Thought is an unbelievable lyricist, one of the most consistent out there. ?uestlove seems to be everywhere at once and still he rarely disappoints. Only complaint I've had in recent years is that their live shows have suffered, in my opinion. I first saw them in 2002 at the Stone Pony and they rocked the crowd. I saw them again in 2007 and it seemed like they were narrowing their setlist to appease mostly college frat-boys. Why else cut out most of the new material from Game Theory and instead do a gimmicky cover of Dylan's "Masters of War"?

Anyway, I like the direction the Roots have gone in the last few years. How I Got Over, the score for Night Catches Us, and now undun. Feels like they have settled into a mood and message for their albums that fits them perfectly. In the last few years, the Roots have fixated on the stories of young people either overcoming or drowning in repressive, urban blight. undun narrows the focus even more to tell the story of one fictional character over the course of the entire song cycle. It is a sophisticated and subtle album. And it's pretty rare for any concept album to be both sophisticated and subtle.



Gotta mention, though: man, do these last two albums have the ghost of Curtis Mayfield all over them or what? Curtis told these same stories. Others did too, obviously. Marvin, Stevie, the list goes on. But what set Curtis apart was his reliance (almost to a fault) on narrative storytelling. More, while he was singing about drug addiction, poverty, and racism, he was pretty much rapping: each verse had such simple end-rhymed couplets. The Roots follow in a proud tradition.



And, while I'm doing the whole comparison thing (dangerous, I know), you can't see these beautiful videos from undun and not think back to Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep, a beautiful and sensitive portrayal of Black families in Watts. If you haven't seen it, check it now!