>> Roots Manuva
bio: Rodney Smith aka Roots Manuva released his MOBO-winning debut album, ?Brand New Second Hand,? in 1999 and his Mercury-nominated, gold-certified follow up, ?Run Come Save Me,? in 2001. With those two records he developed a reputation as the possessor of a beautiful, inimicable voice, a lyrical density which leaves most mainstream MCs sounding a little flat, and a production ear which constantly finds the unusual - the original - and makes it sound as natural as walking. The whole wrapped up inna UK style that?s so much his own that we should crown him King.
Now, with his third album on Big Dada, he has made the best record of his career, 51 minutes of pure ingenuity, real thought, genuine engagement. When Roots Manuva called his album ?Awfully Deep? he wasn?t necessarily talking about how profound it was or how profound he was. He just happens to believe that life is deep, that music is deep. And that if that ain?t necessarily always a good thing (if sometimes that?s an awful thing), well then, that?s still what it?s like.
Musically, Smith has developed a more layered sound for this record, experiments leading him to build some of the songs around chords instead of rhythms, melody rahter than the beat. It?s also his most ?dubwise? record to date, the cavernous echoes adding further dimensions, the ?barrage of bass,? as ever, as deep as it comes. It?s his most accomplished, crafted set of music, with a real signature sound that transcends superficial differences in tempo and style to create a consistent feeling. So while ?A Haunting? may be like a calypso tune sung by Smith?s dead ancestors and ?Rebel Heart? comes over more like cyber-dancehall in hyperdrive, they?re both indubitably by the same artist.
But ?Awfully Deep? is also Smith?s most lyrically consistent offering, a clear theme developing even in amongst the hip hop boasting and JA soundbwoy murderation toasting. Perhaps influenced by the birth of his son, Manuva constantly refers to the battle to do the right thing in the face of temptation. Both an external and an internal fight, a political one and a personal one, it?s a theme that?s at least as old as the Bible (though perhaps with less references to good-body girls and getting pissed). And it?s not one treated lightly, without reference to pain or suffering, as a quick listen to the lyrics on the title track make clear.
If all that sounds a little dry, more like a sociology lecture than one of the most brilliant blasts of populist, hybridised Black British music-making, then there?s a simple solution. Play the cd. Because it?ll catch you and make you laugh and make you dance and make you revel in that voice as it slips off the back of the beat. From the slow steppa of ?Mind 2 Motion,? the fried electronics of the title track, the electro-psych of ?Colossal Insight,? the gothic pirate-step of ?Too Cold,? on into the rudest-of-rude middle sections on tracks like ?Babylon Medicine? and ?Move Ya Loin,? before the terrifying finale of ?The Falling,? this is a classic album from start to finish even before the laser hits the data.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, when you give it a moment, when you feel the music travelling up your spine, your hair standing on end, that ladies and gentlemen, is really deep. ________________________________________
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