Roots album keeps basics, gains popularity

The Roots

Things Fall Apart

The Roots' third major label release, Things Fall Apart, debuted a few weeks ago at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and by March 3 it had already gone gold.

In the past, the Philadelphia-based "organic hip-hop jazz" group has not had wide public reception. Because they play all their own instruments and have no DJ, their music was viewed as fringe, and their largest fan base consisted of (surprise) white college boys.

The contrast between the commercial success of previous albums such as Do You Want More?!!!??! , Illadelph Halflife and Organix, with Things Fall Apart is striking. So what explains the popularity explosion?

Well, for one thing, this is their first album on the hip-hop-experienced MCA label. Though critically acclaimed with their previous label Greffen, the label was not one associated with hip-hop artists, and The Roots struggled under its guise. The improvement made by MCA's superior marketing techniques was apparent from the beginning: their publicity package contained a Walkman with a Things Fall Apart cassette glued inside, a sure wake-up call to even the most oblivious of Entertainment editors.

The results are obvious. Anyone listening to the radio or watching MTV has heard the album's first single, "You Got Me," a duet with Erykah Badu. And The Roots' radio airplay is nothing small: "You Got Me" became an instant favorite, being named the fastest-added rap song in the history of urban radio (in other words, being put into rotation).

But the musical price paid by The Roots in exchange for this fame is different. After Illadelph Halflife, with its complex beats that aren't necessarily danceable, the group realized that they needed to return to a more accessible style. The new album uses more traditional verse-chorus-verse structure on most of the songs and enhances live instruments rather than their self-sampling technique. The result is a tight sound that hasn't abandoned The Roots' innovative flavor, and an album that's catchy without being trendy.

The two already-released singles "You Got Me" as well as the slamming "Adrenaline!" prove that just because something is on the radio, it doesn't have to be wack. "Act Too (Love of My Life)" with Common is a beautiful ode to hip-hop; it could be thought of as a sequel to Common's "I Used to Love Her."

Several of the songs have an old-school sound, such as "Double Trouble" featuring Mos Def and "Without A Doubt," on which Black Thought rhymes, "The team winning/ taking hip-hop back to the beginning/ 'cause MC's are pretending/ I slap your sound out the sky like I'm goal tending." And of course the last track is another beautiful poem by spoken-word artist Ursula Rucker.

The title of the album is connected with the 1958 novel by Chinua Achebe. It is the story of the colonization of a Nigerian village in which the main character is a black man unable to keep up with the times ahead in a white man's world. The Roots draw a parallel to the rap world, as the art form that was created by black people is financially more supported by whites.

With Things Fall Apart, The Roots have created an album that can be, and apparently is, appreciated by more people than the ones reading this review.

-Holly Mack-Ward