http://newsok.com/cd-review-the-roots-undun/article/3630076

The Roots “Undun” (Def Jam)

Possibly the saddest but most thematically ambitious work of The Roots' lengthy career, “Undun” is a brief and emotionally rich concept album about Redford Stevens, a fictional street criminal killed in pursuit of ill-gotten gains. Working backward from his death, “Undun” unspools with downcast cinematic lushness — a little Marvin Gaye's “What's Going On,” a bit of Curtis Mayfield, and some Kanye West circa “808s and Heartbreak” — and much like the Guess Who song that lends the album its title, it was too late for Redford Stevens.

“I did it all for the money, Lord,” Big K.R.I.T. raps on “Make My,” the character's last words as he prepares to “make my departure from the world.” Anchored by Questlove's constant groove, The Roots deliver an unabashedly beautiful musical coda, setting the listener up for the rousing “One Time,” depicting Redford at his height of gangsta power, fearless, and the band constructs a stately, rousing melody that belies the fact that Redford is going “to make it to the bottom, it's such a hard climb.”

After marking off the character's life from end to beginning, “Undun” ends with a four-movement suite, beginning with Sufjan Stevens' “Redford (For Yia Yia and Pappou)” and then culminating in a crash of drums and cascading piano lines and an ending string quartet, mournfully exhaling the last life out of Redford. It's a thug's life, but as “Undun” so deftly illustrates, there was a time of hope before the street got him. For years, The Roots' best card to play was the consummate musicianship of the band, but with “Undun,” Questlove and his band have created a lyrical and quietly moving album about a life wasted quickly that questions why stories such as this one have to be told so often.

— George Lang

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