6
Thursday, January 9, 2003
Thought Meets Ambition and Old
Meets New On Roots' Latest Attempt
By Nick Parker
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Finally, the Roots’ music has caught
up with its ideas.
Socially, politically and emotionally
charged, the Roots have acted as the
most intelligent hip-hop collaboration
since their 1994
major-label pre
miere, Do You
Want More?!!!??!
However, MC
Black Thought
and crew have
The Roots
Phrenology
garnered only a small mix of die-hard
followers and casual fans, never break
ing into the highest tier of rap icons.
But then again, that is never what the
Roots wanted. Much of Black Thought’s
lyrics circle around the fallacy of black
artists rapping about platinum chains
and gold teeth when the majority of
their audience still struggles with pover
ty. Instead, Black Thought chooses to
spin rhymes about his friend’s struggle
with a drug addiction and trying to bal
ance his love life with his life on the
road performing.
But before Phrenology, the jazzy back
beats, unconventional hip-hop instru
mentation and charged lyrics kept the
Roots distant, if not elevated, from pop
ular exposure. Even the master of vocal
orchestration, the human beat box
ft
P|
18 to party -
Womens
Slavic
Chorus
songs^
John Lindsay Morehead II Lounge
Graham Memorial Hall
% I The Yale Women’s Slavic Chorus performs in traditional
clothing and sings all folk songs in their original Slavic
languages (including Russian, Bulgarian, Polish, Ukrainian,
and Macedonian). Translations of song text will be given. ,
This program is part of the Thursdays on the Terrace series
presented by the James M. Johnston Center for
Undergraduate Excellence.
Rahzel, could not pull the Roots’
albums to the top of the charts.
With the energetic, full-bodied blast
of stripped-down hip-hop found in
Phrenology , much of that has changed.
The Roots, however, have not changed.
Their work still carries the same weight
and awareness that has made the band a
welcome refreshment from general hip
hop trends, but their latest attempt is the
first time musical
prowess has been
fused fully with ide
alistic ambition.
Songs still carry
the same swagger
and swing, but all
the bells and whis
des have been tom
away. Phrenology
ends up capturing
all of the Roots’ on
stage presence and
power without los
ing the refinement
and perfection of a studio production.
But that isn’t to say that Phrenology is
just the Roots getting pissed at no one
listening to them and then screaming
about it. Soulful and smooth tracks still
give old fans something to groove to.
Singers Jill Scott and Nelly Furtado add
a sensuous slant to “Sacrifice” and
“Something In The Way Of Things (In
Town)” - providing the most familiar
DIVERSIONS
Roots feel and melodic intermissions
from the rest of the album.
But raucous and throbbing assaults
like “Rock You” and “The Seed (2.0)"
keep things interesting. Raw and jagged,
the tracks crash through the speakers.
The bass doesn’t hum, it roars. Black
Thought’s vocals don’t purr, they burst.
The Roots finally have produced an
album that fives up to all of their ambi
tions. While
lUadelph Halflife and
Things Fall Apart
share more jazzy
mixes and melodic
tunes, Phrenology is
the best mix of the
old and the new.
And it. is the
tracks that show
this same blend that
stand out. “Pussy
Galore” is a balance
between funky flow
and powerful
punch. Smoothed over by female back
ground vocals and vitalized by rough
and simple beats, “Pussy Galore” sums
up the entire album in one song.
Though the Roots may have deviated
from their own roots in eclectic, rolling
hip-hop, they nevertheless have tapped
into the roots of true hip-hop. Raw,
sharp, yet delightfully defined, Phrenology
is thought finally meeting reality.
The Arts & Entertainment Editor can
be reached at artsdesk@unc.edu.
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Common Diversifies; Pumpkins Pry Into Past
Common
Electric Circus
★★★☆☆
For better or worse, Detroit-based
emcee Common makes a more chal
lenging rap record than 95 percent of
his peers with his fifth and latest release,
Electric Circus.
He also manages to make a better
psychedelic rock record than 60 percent
of today’s bands.
While Electric Circus isn’t Common’s
best work, it’s certainly his bravest, and
it adheres to none of the hedonistic, vac
uous sentiments that dominate main
stream hip-hop today.
The logically chosen first single
“Come Close” is a lush, ecstatic piece of
sonic velvet with MaryJ. Blige adding
her earthy crooning. Common’s accom
modating delivery and the Neptunes’
Native Tongues-style production make
for the album’s most inviting track.
The album’s instrumental opener
“Ferris Wheel” accurately suggests an
“electric circus,” a cross between P-
Funk’s psychedelic soul operas and Ray
Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This
Way Comes.”
The revelatory “Aquarius” has an
ambling feel and a Doors-like sound
until the beat literally drops after
Common’s first few bars. On this track,
he reflects on his struggles to remain
artistically honest in the ever-shifting cli
mate of today’s hip-hop, a recurrent
theme on Electric Circus.
If “Come Close” was a live marriage
proposal, “Star *69 (PS With Love)" is a
phone-sex honeymoon. Common’s blue
call to the object of his desire is couched
in a sedate astral plane of analog key
boards and rippling wah-wah guitar, both
contributed by the ingenious ftince.
Electric Circus certainly isn’t perfect,
as might be expected from a work that
straddles genres long considered dis
parate. Often, Common’s flow doesn’t
sound completely comfortable matched
against the eclecticism of the music - or
vice versa - which is the case with
“Electric Wire Hustle Flower.”
Whether intentionally or not,
Common teases the listener by wasting
a number of maddeningly tantalizing
instrumentals as inconsequential inter
ludes between tracks.
Despite the album’s excesses, credit
must be given to Common for fearless
ly bringing elements of everything from
Pink FToydian prog rock to Princely
glam-funk to a rap record without com
pletely losing the feel of hip-hop.
While the album might not become a
hip-hop Sgt. Pepper’s in terms of immedi
ately accessible experimentation, it never
goes too far off the deep end. The
album’s greatest strength, regardless of
whether it completely hits the mark, is in
its resdess experimentation and its
refusal to give into preconceived notions
of what hip-hop is, can and should be.
By Tacque Kirksey
The Smashing Pumpkins
Earphoria
Something happened to rock music
during the early ’9os - something great.
And even in the midst of rock greats
like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, it shouldn’t
be so easy to forget about the Smashing
Pumpkins.
Never fitting cozily into one musical
genre, the Pumpkins were equal parts
goth rock and trippy romance until their
2000 breakup. But the early ’9os were
immensely important years for the
band, and Earphoria serves as a tribute
to those years. The album, a reissue of
the 1994 soundtrack to their concert
video Vieuphoria, has a few studio out
takes but mosdy is culled from various
five performances from 1993-94. These
tracks represent an excellent cross sec
tion of performances of songs from
Siamese Dream as well as the band’s
debut album Gish and their EP Lull.
Asa whole, the album is strong but
loses momentum on a few pop tracks
that don’t match the urgency and anger
of the rest. Songs like “Quiet” and “I
Am One” couldn’t be better - Billy
Corgan’s voice and the band’s signature
fuzzy guitars tear through with intensity
that never will be replicated.
And a gendy swaying acoustic ver-
(Ehp Saily ®ar HM
sion of “Cherub Rock” tones down the
guitars but keeps the album going in the
right direction.
Earphoria would be better, though, if
this intensity wasn’t disrupted by studio
tracks like “Pulseczar” and “Bugg
Superstar.” Though good examples of
experimentation with dream pop, they
break the mood and make the listener
yearn for Corgan’s blood-curdling
screams.
This aside, the album has priceless
moments that alone make the album a
worthy addition to any rock collection
and a must for Pumpkins devotees.
By Caroline Lindsey
Talib Kweli
Quality
Once upon a time, two of the rising
luminaries of the underground rap scene
teamed up to create one of the genre’s
most fulfilling albums of the 19905.
Mos Def and Talib Kweli’s Black Star
served as a marker for how inspiring,
introspective and intelligent hip-hop
could be. Kweli followed up his part
ner’s Black On Both Sides with Reflection
Eternal in 2000 -but it wasn’t a pure
solo debut, as it was a collaborative
effort with DJ Hi-Tek.
Quality, however, is all Kweli’s show.
It’s a far cry from the violence and
misogyny of G-funk, the emptiness of
bling bling, the stark and spare East
Coast sound and the fun but forgettable
quality of most Southern bounce.
Alternately joyful and angry, laid-back
and banging, the album is always fresh.
The production by various artists
isn’t as cutting edge as, say, that by
Organized Noize or the Bomb Squad in
their heydays. But there’s no denying
that Quality is one of the most musical
ly diverse rap albums to drop in a while.
The first proper track, “Rush,” is a
hard-hitting, guttural affair sparked by
some dirty rock-guitar flourish. The
upbeat “Shock Body” is driven by a cel
ebratory throng of horns. The later
songs go from summery funk to pas
sionate R&B.
Kweli matches the music’s power
with his words and continues to prove
that he’s no lyrical dope. In “Get By,” he
delivers such insightful and poetic lines
as “We commute to computers/ Spirits
stay mute while you eagles spread
rumors/We survivalists turned to con
sumers" and “The TV got us reachin’ for
stars/Not the ones between Venus and
Mars, the ones that be readin’ for parts.”
“The Proud” is another example of
b-boy rhymes being used as a forum for
insightful commentary. Evoking the
Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11
attacks, Kweli examines America’s
problems - both external and internal.
Anew and fantastic statement from
the underground, Quality most definite
ly fives up to its title - it’s one of the best
hip hop records of recent memory.
By Elliott Dube
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